Mutually Exclusive
by TheReflection
Summary: Forgiveness is something both Jane and Lisbon have to seek from each other when Lisbon uncovers her biggest and worst secret. (First fanfiction)
1. Chapter 1

Hello there!

I am new to this fascinating world of fanfiction, but have read a great deal of them, so I decided to have my own go at it. As you may notice while reading, I'm not a native speaker, so please forgive any mistakes in grammar or spelling, however, if you find something that you cannot leave their with a good conscience, then tell me, I'd be grateful.

And, although this is my first fanfiction, I know one thing: I have to say I don't own any of the characters. Some people are very creative at writing disclaimers, I am not one of them. So, here we go.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, they belong to their creator who still doesn't want to make them a couple. (This is torture. Does he even realize that? Sometimes I imagine him sitting in a corner and laugh like an evil witch while he watches us fans suffer.)

You have to know this story takes place before Red John was killed, and even before that list of seven existed. It sets in a little time after "Black Cherry", I think, before Lorelei dies. So what happens in here is AU.

Enough of this talk now, I would be happy if you left me a note. I know there doesn't exactly happen much :)

Enjoy

TheReflection

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_He remembered very well the day sometime after Lorelei Martin's escape from her sister's cabin in the woods. He and Lisbon had been walking down a little hill on the golf court of one of those bigwig-country-clubs because a body had been found in the duck pond. _

_The whole drive to the scene he'd had his nose buried in his newly bought notebook, jabbing down names of all the men he remembered having shaken hands with over the past nine years. When they'd gotten out of the car when they'd reached their destination, Lisbon had asked him something that almost had made his heart stop. _

_„Am I in that book?" _

_He could hear the hope that she wasn't in her voice, but he picked up on the hint of fear she tried to hide, too. _

_ „Huh." _

_At first, he thought it stupid of her to even think of asking such a question. Then he remembered she hadn't been present when Lorelei Martins had told him. So he felt compelled to explain. _

_„She said it's a wonder Red John and I didn't become friends. Now what we have, I consider a friendship. So, my friend, you are free and clear." _

_She pondered that for a moment, remaining silent, until she said: „That's a relief." _

_Lisbon smiled at him thankfully and he searched her face for any traces of emotions that would tell him what she was really feeling. To his own surprise, he found nothing but what she had told him: relief._

_If only he'd known the truth by then already, then he would have known it had all been a lie._


	2. Chapter 2

Please, don't kill me for this :)

Enjoy, let me know what you think.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

When he walked in Lisbon's office to tell her she should call it a night, too, as soon as the team were leaving, he didn't notice the change at first. But when she looked up from her files, he didn't see the usual annoyance at his presence in her eyes, but actually saw a hint of contentment there.

_She must have something she wants to talk to me about_, he thought, let himself drop on her couch – the one he'd bought for her – and sipped his tea. Then, she smiled a smile that was completely unknown to him and he raised his eyebrows.

„What is it, Lisbon?" he asked.

She gestured to the chair in front of her desk. „Please, sit here. I have something to tell you."

For a second, he thought she might have gone crazy. Normally when she wanted to talk to him about something it was about one of his schemes or a complaint that had been handed in to her _because_ of his schemes or his always present need to insult people. He wouldn't blame her if she'd lost it because of his harebrained mind games.

But this time, this _smile_ was different. Not ironic and so obviously fake a blind man would've recognized it, not the one she used to smile before giving him one of her Don't-do-this-again-speeches although she knew she didn't mean it and he would do it again anyways.

This one seemed so true and genuine he almost believed it. But Lisbon would never smile like this. So he obeyed her order, curious as to what was going to follow. He sipped his tea again once he was re-seated, but she took it out of his hands.

„You don't want to shatter your favorite teacup to pieces, do you?" she said, putting it on her desk and keeping this eerily nice smile on her face.

He frowned. What could Lisbon have to say that would make him drop the teacup and break it?

Lisbon remained silent until it was almost unbearable for him and he just wanted to ask her what the hell was going on when she spoke the most terrifying words he'd ever heard.

„I am the _leak_ you are looking for. The leak LaRoche was trying to find two years ago. "

She watched his face fall with the same eerie smile on her face.

Jane had to gulp hard to make his voice work. "What leak?"

Lisbon – the woman he'd thought he'd known for the better part of a decade – cocked her head and looked at him as she always had when she wanted to make him tell her the truth. Only this time it was in a more playful manner.

"You know what I'm talking about, Mr. Jane."

Jane had a hard time trying not to flinch. She hadn't called him that since their first meeting. He was unable to meet her eyes any longer. Those green depths he had come to adore so much. It took him some time until he could speak again – until he had his breathing, his pulse and his thoughts back under control.

"Are you telling me you are Red John's mole?"

She nodded, the smile still present but somehow subdued now. "Yes. It surprises me that you haven't suspected me before."

He wanted to say he had, but it would have been a blatant lie and he had a gnawing feeling she would know. She cocked her head to the other side and clasped her hands on her desk. The desk he'd seen her work behind so often; so many times she had spent her evenings filling out forms, typing reports, sometimes dozing with her head on her arms. Then, he would wake her and tell her to go home and she would refuse until she had to see he was right. An old game he had loved to play.

"I am wondering," she said, her voice business-like now, cool and contemplating, "if it bothers you that you have never noticed anything. No flaws in my act. I have to admit, I am quite proud of myself. All those years, I conned the conman."

He was too shocked to feel insulted, so he didn't. There was only one thing that he was thinking about right now. One question he couldn't get out of his head.

"Why reveal yourself now? After all that time? All those years of successfully deceiving us?"

He couldn't resist adding the last question in a slightly bitter, mocking tone.

Lisbon – no, he thought, the woman who _claimed_ to be Lisbon – raised her shoulders a little. "I did not really have a say in this. It was Red John's decision," she said, her voice making it evident that she would have chosen differently.

"I talked to him about it, told him that this play was going too well to give it up already but he wouldn't budge, so I agreed in the end. He didn't really tell me his reasons."

Again Jane gulped hard. He was thinking of a lot of things he could have done to her, but he decided for the way he liked least. She had kept telling him all the time that he couldn't kill Red John, that he had to hand him over to the police. He didn't know why he felt he had to fulfill her request. He didn't know why he said what he said next.

"You know I have to tell the others. I have to let them arrest you."

The woman nodded. She didn't seem to care about it in the slightest bit.

Before he even had time to ponder if he really should do this – if he shouldn't just shoot caution to the wind, take her with him and torture her until she gave away Red John's name and whereabouts to him so he could finally kill the man that slaughtered his family nine years ago – he had risen from his seat and entered the bullpen. He fisted his hands, then opened them again, heard the door of her office woosh open and closed again and listened to her footsteps approach until he could see her out of the corner of his eye. She stopped there. They both remained silent.

"Boss? Is everything all right?" he heard van Pelt's concerned voice ask.

Oh how much wasn't all right at that moment. How much he wished he could just scream and cry.

Instead, he forced himself to say in a calm, yet quiet and slightly hoarse voice: "Cho, arrest her."

Jane turned his head so he could look at the Asian man.

"Arrest whom?"

Jane's gaze returned to Lisbon and he looked at her profile outlining itself against the dawning evening – her skin was glowing and he was sure she looked more beautiful than ever – and dropped his eyes to the floor. He noticed that she had shoved her hands into her front jeans pockets. She seemed so at ease with this situation and he hated her for it.

"Lis- …this woman has just told me she has a connection to Red John. Arrest her."

Silence fell again and no one made a move.

Until: "What?" came Rigsby's voice.

Jane looked at him. "I said…"

But Rigsby cut in. "I heard you. But…what?"

Van Pelt inserted herself. "You have to be kidding," she said, "Lisbon isn't connected to…"

For the first time since she'd left her – no, Jane corrected himself once again, the _character_ Agent Lisbon's – office, the woman spoke and interrupted van Pelt. "He is right."

All the eyes in the room flew to her.

Van Pelt looked shell shocked, like she was looking at the devil herself.

Rigsby couldn't close his mouth and Jane was tempted to tell him to pick his jaw up from the floor.

Cho showed almost no reaction hadn't it been for the slight twitch as he set his jaw. His body tensed and he seemed ready to bolt out if his chair if the woman who'd called herself Teresa Lisbon for the last nine years – longer, even – was to make one wrong move.

The woman smiled at them. This time a warmer, more soothing smile.

"I am the mole you have been looking for. I'm the one who fed Red John all the information he required to slip through our - your fingers every time."

She directed her next words at Cho: "Mr. Jane is right, Agent Cho. You have to arrest me."

And with that she held out her wrists, ready for the handcuffs to snap closed around them. Slowly, Cho rose out of his chair, reached behind him to pull out his handcuffs and did just that – arrest Teresa Lisbon, his own boss.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

I have to say, in all the fanfictions out there, I have not once read one that really had Lisbon conspire with Red John.

Sometimes, she would have been hypnotized by Red John or something, but never...the "real" deal.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello!

I have read this part over and over again, deleting and re-writing and adding things, because, sadly, I am one of those writers that sometimes get very invested in their stories. On its own, that's not a bad thing, I think, but I tend to let continuity suffer, so I had to alter some things.

Also, if this seems OOC for you, I feel it had to be. Lisbon is someone else than was believed and I think that is a shock to everyone.

Also, I'd like to answer to some guest reviews (in chronological order).

Guest: Thanks for your review to chapter one!

Guest: Thank you, I always try and do my best. Hope you like this part, too.

Kaoh: Wow, thank you so much! Very encouraging words!

Guest: Whaaaat? was your question - I hope I can provide you some answers ;)

Idonthaveaname: Well, I guess I can't please everyone :)

And thanks to all who followed this story and your fav, Sabrielle29 :)

Still, I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Half an hour later, she was seated in one of the interrogation rooms, her hands cuffed to the table and clasped on top of it. Jane, van Pelt, Cho and Rigsby were standing on the other side of the two way mirror and looking at her.

"I can't believe this," van Pelt suddenly lamented. "Is this really happening or can someone pinch me and wake me up from this nightmare?"

Jane didn't look at her as he said: "I can only tell you that I don't think this is a dream. And I also don't think that she's lying about her connection to Red John."

He marveled at his restraint that made him keep his voice so calm.

"But then we have to see," he added, "that this woman has been fooling me, of all people, for almost ten years."

They didn't reply.

A few seconds later, Cho asked: "Shall I go in?"

He had his arms crossed over his chest and looked lost. That wasn't normal for Cho. He was always deadpan, always calm. This was the only time Jane had ever seen him show distress.

"No," he answered. "I'll go."

He sensed that Cho wanted to stop him, probably because he thought Jane would do something to her, ask her some questions until he couldn't bear it anymore and assault her. But then, Jane wasn't a man of violence.

"I won't touch her, Cho. I couldn't do that."

And after a pause, he added: "I can't believe it was all just a ruse, either. I trusted her," he said, taking a sudden interest in the floor.

When he heard them shift uncomfortably, he finally left and stepped into the interrogation room.

Lisbon – he didn't want to have to call her "the woman" – looked up and smiled at him.

She watched him take a seat across from her and when he'd settled down, he asked: "I take it Teresa Lisbon is not your real name?"

She looked at him as if he'd just told her psychics did actually exist. "Oh yes, it is. I am Teresa Lisbon, that is the name I was given the day I was born thirty-nine years ago."

He raised his eyebrow in surprise. "So you didn't bother taking on a false identity?"

Lisbon – now he felt kind of relieved he could call her that again – shook her head. "Red John was right when he told me I wouldn't need to. We worked very hard so I wouldn't be found out. "

He watched her a few moments, looking her up and down. She was the same as ever, the same small body, the same porcelain skin, the same ebony hair and the same emerald eyes. And she still was Lisbon.

Only now the Lisbon-who-worked-with-Red-John.

"Normally Red John's disciples end up dead only hours after we caught them. What about you?"

She smiled again, and this smile held adoration. "Oh, he wouldn't kill me."

To Jane, she seemed too sure of that fact for it to be true. "Why not? So far, no one has proven to be of any real worth to him. He just offed them as soon as possible."

Lisbon sighed and leaned forward as if she wanted to tell him something in confidence. She knew this was being recorded, but he and the team hadn't come to a conclusion yet as if to use the footage they would get from this interrogation or not. They hadn't called anyone to tell them their boss worked for Red John. They couldn't just turn her in – not yet.

"Mr. Jane, I know many others have claimed this, but I am telling you the truth right now: I am not only his disciple, Mr. Jane. I am his friend. Not even Lorelei is that close."

Lisbon showed a faint trace of pleasure when she saw Jane's fingers twitch at the mention of his former lover's name.

"So? How close exactly are you?"

"Closest."

He doubted her words, but he only read sincerity in her face, so he had to acknowledge she was telling the truth.

Jane was stunned when she calmly explained herself to him.

"No other of his followers know about the kind of our involvement. He wants me to stay under the radar, they don't even suspect me. Whenever they have seen us together they'd believe it was because of work. Lorelei doesn't know who I am to him and he has kept me a secret to everyone else he knows, too. My guess is that he fears his minions would attack me out of jealousy for my "status", but he keeps denying it."

"So you must mean a great deal to him, huh?"

She lifted one shoulder and smiled a half smile, almost apologetic, which made her dimple show. "Apparently, yes, I do."

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him and he leaned forward. He could hardly conceal his anger in case her answer should be positive.

"Have you slept with him?"

Lisbon gave a little gasp and looked at him, exasperated. "No!"

She leaned back in her chair again, her hands resting in her lap. "It would have made our relationship weird. If I had slept with him, it would have been like sleeping with my own brother. But there never was any kind of sexual attraction between us, anyway."

She smiled, coyly. "Apart from that, I have heard him not to be such a gentle lover. Not exactly what I am going for."

Jane was surprised. He had known Lisbon as the nice little Catholic schoolgirl that blushed at the faintest teasing comment. Never would he have expected her to be so open about her sexual preferences. And if he wasn't mistaken, there was a hidden flirty glint in her eyes as she looked at him across the table.

Desperate he shoved those thoughts aside. This woman, his so-called friend, had betrayed him. This wasn't the time to think about her like this.

He sighed. "So if he isn't going to kill you, then how long do you estimate will it take him to get you out of here?"

Yet another surprise was waiting for him down that lane.

Lisbon re-evaluated him for a few seconds before she said: "I asked him not to free me."

Jane's eyes widened. "What?"

"When he offered me the _fastest escape from prison ever made_ – those were his exact words -, I declined. I told him I didn't want to get away. I made him see that I wanted to await my trial and my sentence."

"Why?"

She shrugged and looked away from him at her hands. This was the first time he saw a glimpse of the "new" Lisbon afraid of admittance.

"I don't know. It just didn't seem necessary to me."

"And he agreed, just like that? He wasn't afraid you'd give away his name immediately and end his game as soon as possible?"

"He knows I could never give away his name, no matter how hard you try to break me."

Jane saw her lift the corners of her mouth, but the attempted smile didn't reach any further.

"Red John has trained me very well wherever that is concerned.

He would have trusted me to keep quiet without it, but it was my own explicit wish he'd do it. I didn't quite feel I could trust myself I wouldn't give away anything under the right kind and amount of _pressure_" – he knew she was actually talking about torture – "inflicted on me.

In case someone found out about who he is and he would decide to make a run for it, it was my intention to turn myself in, tell the police who I am and make them question me – distract them, stall them. Keep their hopes up they would get some helpful information from me until he has had time to disappear. And still I would have kept quiet and their chances at finding him would have plummeted to zero.

His _training_ has turned out to be maddening, but it has helped me a great deal. It has proven worth the effort of almost going crazy.

I can assure you, no matter how long you will keep me in this interrogation room. No matter how hard you beat me. No matter how long you starve and dehydrate me, deprive me of my most primal needs. I would not give away something I didn't want to, including his identity."

He suspected that that was not the only side there was to her defending Red John's identity.

"Has he planted a hypnotic barrier in your head that keeps you from telling us his name?"

She nodded. "Yes, that was my own wish, too. It would probably cause me physical pain to even pronounce his name, I don't know what exactly he did to me, what would happen if I were to say his name. He has been only Red John to me for a very, very long time already."

Jane narrowed his eyes at her. "How long have you known him?"

With a sudden intensity, her eyes turned grim, her face looking like it was made of marble. She leaned towards him and he felt the energy she was suppressing as if she wanted to keep herself from leaping from her chair.

"What we have, Mr. Jane," she growled, "goes beyond any ordinary acquaintance. We are siblings to each other, siblings of the heart and mind."

Jane felt himself go completely still. There she was, the tigress he knew she was hiding inside of her tiny body.

It made him sad to see that fire now only flared when she was talking about his worst enemy.

"I have known him nearly all my life. From the moment we met for the first time I knew he was different and then I was only eight. He is special to me and I am special to him. I am not making the facts look better here, Mr. Jane, he has told me so himself, only seconds after he had agreed to not freeing me from your _claws_."

Jane felt as if his whole body was deflating. His mouth turned dry and when he finally was able to speak again, his voice sounded raspy.

"It sounds very much like you are in love with him, _Miss_ Lisbon."

He put a bitter emphasis on her name and he felt the sudden urge to hit her when she smiled at him again.

"I know. He has told me that before, but I can assure you – and you should know best, Mr. Jane, that this is true -, this is only my protective sense of a bigger sister coming through. I will defend him no matter what – I am not saying what he did was right, though."

"So is he younger than you?"

"No. But he has accepted my way of thinking very soon. He knows I care for him and he cares for me, too. He has learned how to express it very subtly, but I have picked up on it."

She looked sideways with a dreamy expression on her face, so Jane snapped her out of her reverie.

"Why do you answer all my questions? You are giving away so much about him right now, doesn't that bother him?"

Lisbon turned her head back to him, suddenly very intense again.

"He told me to answer your questions as well as I can without handing you too many facts. So far, everything I have admitted to you is not very telling, actually. But you'd have to know him to understand."

"Oh, I am sure of that," Jane snorted bitterly.

Lisbon angled her head, spreading her hands on the tabletop. "He has told me to deliver a message. He wants you to know he'd like to retire from his life as a serial killer. That's actually why I have revealed myself.

He is ready to be caught. He wants you to piece together who he is by what you already know and by what I am telling you."

Jane felt his jaw fall open very ungracefully, but he didn't care right now.

Lisbon continued. "He said, if he didn't turn this into a paper chase – and I'm quoting him directly here – _it would take all the fun out of your long lasting game_. I have to say," she grinned, "he is right."

He tried to distract himself from what she had just revealed to him, so he asked: "Then you were lying when you said you didn't know his reasons for giving up earlier."

"Just a little necessary lie," she said. "I wanted the team to hear it, too, and as I know they are all standing behind that mirror, watching me brimming with anger, I was correct to assume that there would be a better opportunity to let you all know later and I wouldn't have to explain twice."

Jane's mind was beginning to race. Why would Red John give up so suddenly? For what reason did he send Lisbon as his messenger – why hadn't he just shown up in his motel room for their final stand-off? She could very well have had a great life outside of prison which was out of the picture for her now.

"Don't bother trying to think up to his reasons for this, Mr. Jane. All he told me was that he considered it was enough of the killing now. He was growing weary of the screams, I guess.

Oh, and, in case you are asking yourself: He has indeed asked me if I was all right with giving myself away or if I wanted him to send someone else to do this. He would have found more than one of his followers who would have done this voluntarily. But I wanted to do it, because as soon as he is going to prison, I am going, too. He protested, said he wouldn't mind and that he wanted me to live my life normally undiscovered, but I know what he looks like when he's grateful."

Jane couldn't do much more as stare and twist the wedding ring on his finger. He was wondering if she saw the same in Red John that all his disciples saw– a man to be regarded as their personal god.

As if she had read his thoughts, Lisbon spoke: "He isn't a god to me, Mr. Jane. As I have already told you, we are equals in everything we do and we are connected beyond anything I have ever experienced. If you are thinking you and I have become close – and I know you do, Mr. Jane – then it is nothing compared to our connection. You know I don't believe in anything supernatural, least of all psychics" – Jane flinched – "but sometimes I really think we can read each other's thoughts. We barely need to communicate anymore beyond catching each other up on our lives.

Phones and e-mail are too obvious, no matter how much we can mislead the police. We have our ways, believe me, Mr. Jane, but they very often aren't even necessary because we know what the other one is doing right at this moment."

Jane tried to seem unaffected by what she was saying, but it was giving him a very hard time. He raised his eyebrows, but he feared it made him rather look like a deer in the headlights of a truck than like he was questioning her.

"So? What is he doing right now, then?"

He really hoped she couldn't hear the hitch in his voice that was a telltale sign as to how desperate he was.

His heart was breaking more with every word she said. Every word that passed her beautifully shaped lips destroyed him more.

Lisbon readjusted her sitting position so she could rest more comfortably. He didn't know how long they'd been in here already but with all the enduring silences between questions he figured it was about half an hour.

The woman in front of him leaned back. "He is waiting for you, Mr. Jane, to find him. That's all. He is where he always is at this time of the day and that won't change until you have come to him."

Jane shifted uncomfortably in his chair. She made it sound like Red John held all the cards, had all the power on his side. And that probably was the truth.

He was beginning to feel the strain this conversation was taking on him and he contemplated leaving it be for this day.

If she was to be believed, she wouldn't be making any attempts to escape and he thought a single pair of police officers would suffice to guard her. The team would take on the task themselves. He knew Cho would be the first to volunteer and van Pelt would probably be next because she was going to be even grimmer than when he'd left them in the adjoining room, watching him interrogate Lisbon.

His train of thought was rudely interrupted though, as Lisbon's head jerked up and she stared at the opening door. It was van Pelt who'd stepped into the room, and she didn't spare the woman sitting handcuffed to the table a single glance until she had settled in her chair, clasping her hands on top of the table, just as Lisbon was doing.

He recognized this sort of interrogation: Mirroring the suspect until it would feel comfortable enough to share its secrets. He thought it rather unnecessary, though, Lisbon seemed to be more than willing to tell them as much as possible.

Van Pelt stared into Lisbon's eyes as if she wanted her to drop to the floor, dead at the force of her will.

"What has been irking me all the time I was watching," Grace began, "is the question whether you have ever witnessed one of Red John's killings?"

Jane's heart sped up its rhythm, skipping some beats, and he felt the insides of his hand begin to sweat. Why hadn't he thought of this himself before? The team probably had expected this to be one of his first questions to Lisbon.

Lisbon looked van Pelt up and down as if she'd just met the woman for the first time. "I always knew there was a fiercer side to you, Grace."

Jane noticed how Grace's jaw set at the mention of her first name.

"It's nice to see that. I just wish you had shown it sooner, it would have made your work a lot better. You were playing for "nice and obedient Girl" to please me. It would have pleased me a lot more if you had shown me what you are hiding behind that sweet face."

"Don't digress, Lisbon," hissed van Pelt, and Lisbon nodded in agreement, not showing any sign of intimidation.

"Yes, in fact I have seen Red John kill. Not only once, but by far not all of his "work". You have to know that he regards what he has done as some kind of art. He always found a way to trick his own people who were guarding his actions so he could sneak me in and out and they wouldn't notice. I think that's rather ironic. Like the double bottom in a magician's box.

But I can assure you, there is nothing artful about people screaming at the top of their lungs and begging for their lives."

Grace raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

"He still is my friend, Grace. I have known him before he ever even started killing. He asked me to accompany him to see him fulfill his…let's call it his _longing for blood_. To him, it must have resembled asking a friend out to the movies. I didn't turn him down.

I can't say I see the beauty in his doings he seems to see, but you'd have to watch him do it to understand the fascination it still held for me. It wasn't his victims that were so…captivating. It was him at the top of his game."

That was when Jane came back to life, freed from his stupor at her description of what pain Red John had inflicted on his victims and that she actually had witnessed him doing it.

The Lisbon he'd known would have shot that bastard straight in the head without a single word as a warning had she caught him in the act.

His voice went cold, devoid of any feelings whatsoever. "Were you there when he killed _them_?"

There was no need of asking whom he was talking about. She slowly turned her gaze from Grace to him and he could see the answer in her eyes before she even opened her mouth.

Her whole body tensing, she said: "Yes."

She let him have a moment, he saw her eyes drop to his hands which he had clenched into fists and he knew she was waiting for him to lose it and attack, possibly kill her with his bare hands as well.

When he didn't she looked back into his face. "I only heard their screams. Their voices are the ones I remember the most distinctly. The others mostly cried the names of their family, called to God so He might save them or just screamed for help. It was nothing special, but what they said stands out.

I didn't know when Red John planned to kill someone – never. Whenever he wanted me to come with him, he would just contact me spontaneously a few hours in advance so I knew where he was – I told you, I always know – and what he was doing. The other times, I only knew what he'd been up to after it was done.

After a while I kind of developed a new sense of feeling which calls would tell me what he was about to do. So I never knew the identities of the victims and who they were attached to in advance. Their screams didn't mean anything to me.

Killing your wife and daughter, Mr. Jane, was the only murder he cared to talk to me about earlier. He must have been thinking about it for a while because he knew you were on his case.

He wanted to see if he could outsmart you, the fake psychic that was so intent on holding up his façade. He hadn't planned from the beginning on to toy with you, Mr. Jane.

It was the only killing I even bothered to even try and talk him out of because after he laid his plan out to me, I researched you, read some newspaper articles about your work with the police. I saw what you were capable of.

I wanted him to stop it, for his sake. I told him it would be dangerous, but he wouldn't really listen to me, not on this. Normally, he did. Very often asked for my advice.

So he did it anyway and he invited me along. I went, because this time, I had to make sure he wouldn't get caught. He sure never had made a mistake before, but he got very invested whenever he started talking about you, about how his clever scheme would be your downfall.

I was afraid he'd throw caution to the winds.

So your wife and child's screams conjured a picture in my mind: Your picture, Mr. Jane. I can still feel how it pierced my ears. Back then, I wanted to cover my ears with my hands so I wouldn't have to listen, but it just was too mesmerizing. _Patrick_ and _Daddy _over and over again."

Jane could see in her face that at that moment, she wasn't in the room with them but with Red John, Angela and Charlotte, just the same as him. Now he had the truth he'd always wanted and never known: Had they suffered? Yes. Had they screamed his name? Yes.

At the same time, Jane knew that Lisbon was still haunted by this.

Her next words startled him: "Their screams are the only ones who weren't meaningless to me."

His head snapped upwards to meet her eyes again and he couldn't help but hope she was regretting it. Regretting having Red John as a friend because of him, Jane. It would have meant that she cared about him, too.

"Oh, don't get me wrong," she added when she understood what she was seeing, "I don't regret any of the things I did. Going with him to watch him kill. Cover him up. Become friends with him in the first place, although I couldn't have known what was awaiting me back when I was a little girl.

I am not sorry. Keep quiet was what I felt I had to do for the sake of him and myself, for the sake of our friendship. I value it more than anything."

This did it.

Jane abruptly rose from his chair, its legs screeching on the ground. Lisbon actually flinched, the first sign of fear she had shown in here, and looked up at him, expecting to see Jane flying at her. But as much as Jane wished he could do that, he just couldn't bring himself to it. He couldn't do her harm, not even while she was torturing him.

He turned to leave, but Lisbon's voice made him stop dead in his tracks. He didn't turn back around, though.

"You know, Mr. Jane, it was a kind of delight to finally see you as the one squirming. Not under the prodding and probing questions of a nerve-wrecking consultant but under the answers to questions you dreaded the most."

She didn't sound cruel as she said this, but the second she finished her sentence his heart tore apart.

The person who had picked him up off the floor every time he had fallen was sitting at the table, boring her eyes into the back of his head and undoubtedly sporting a smile which meant to be soothing but which was belying the cold hearted glint in her eyes.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

My initial intention was to let it end here. But my muse ran away with my thougts. It's up to you if you want to read more... I think this is an evil, but also a nice ending, but I have more in store for you if you want to read it :)


	4. Chapter 4

Here we go with chapter four.

Something will happen that some of you will find illogical. Or stupid. Something like that. But it's getting the story where I want it to be, so... ;)

Again, thanks to all who read this. I'd also like to thank my guest reviewers on chapter 3.

Guest: Thanks, I hope you enjoy where this is going :)

Anna: Your enthusiasm is great for my ego ;) I really hope you still like this after you've finished this :)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

He paced back and forth in his attic, remembering many times when she'd come up here to force come help and investigate. She would knock on the steel door before entering with or without his permission. He had always more or less consciously been waiting to hear her footsteps approach.

It was almost impossible for him to wrap his head around what she had just told him in that interrogation room, but it was starting to sink in.

For almost ten years, she had lied to him. And for almost ten years, he hadn't noticed an odd thing about her. He had never taken her for a good liar and had stressed on numerous occasions that she was too honest a person to deceit anyone.

How could he not have noticed? How could he have been so blind?

Jane could not find a fitting explanation for this, no matter how many times he changed direction in his attic. No matter how many minutes he stared out of the window.

He thought about all the expressions on her face. Exasperation, annoyance, sadness, suspicion; the crease of her brow that came with most of them.

Before he even knew, it was the early morning hours and dusk was beginning to tint the sky a light grey.

That was when he had an idea: What if she _hadn't_ deceived them the way they thought?

She probably hadn't shown them a false personality like they were all believing right now. Just kept some of it away from them, safely locked inside of her. Like the fact that she had known and had been friends with Red John ever since her childhood.

The need to talk to her, to see she was still the same person – if only on the outside – to him, was driving him crazy and in the end, he decided to go back to the interrogation room. In front of it sat Cho and Rigsby on chairs, their heads sunk against the wall and lolled to the side. He'd seen Grace sleeping with her head on her desk, her arms folded beneath it, while passing the bullpen.

Careful not to wake any of them, he pushed the door open. He didn't know what he'd expected to see upon entering. There she was, still sitting in the same chair, still attached to the table with handcuffs and resting her head on her arms the same way as Grace, but when she heard him step in, she raised her head and looked at him, her eyes a little weary but still alert and awake.

At the sight of her eyes meeting his immediately, he wanted to turn around and run as far as his feet could take him, but her words stopped him from leaving: "You haven't woken me up, don't bother trying to use that as an excuse to run."

He gulped and hesitantly took a seat opposite of her once again.

"Do you want to ask some more questions?"

Jane nodded. "Yes, but not about Red John."

"Then, about what?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

It was one of the expressions he'd come to know so well and like so much over the last few years, because it meant she was curious about what scheme he had to offer this time.

"How much of you really was…" he started, but somehow couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

Lisbon seemed to read his thoughts and completed the question for him. "Fake?"

Jane was almost embarrassed, but nodded. Was he so obvious? She apparently was better at reading him that he'd thought. Or just better than she'd shown.

Lisbon seemed to think about that for a little. "Actually, I always tried to be true. All I did was holding back some aspects of my personality and personal life."

"That's about what I suspected," Jane said, glad he hadn't completely lost his grip. He could still figure her out.

"But why not lead us onto a wrong path? So we wouldn't grow close to who you are, to keep us at a distance by showing us a faux persona?"

She shot him a sad smile. "I didn't want to lie to people whom I was working with every single day. Slight changes in my behavior in case I didn't keep the mask up one hundred percent at all times would have been noticed immediately. You would have known something was odd.

Also, I didn't like the prospect of lying to people who would most likely become my friends." "Friends?" Jane asked, now genuinely surprised.

He'd expected he and the team were just a fun game to play to her and Red John. Once again, she clasped her hands on the tabletop and leaned forward. Jane's eyes caught the golden glint of her cross necklace.

"Yes. Many people who work together become friends. It's the way it goes. After all, you spend a great deal of your time with them.

Don't misunderstand me because of what I said earlier. This…friendship we've built up over the years. It means something to me."

His head snapped upwards and he met her eyes again. "So? Does it?"

It didn't please him that his voice sounded bitter. Like she was getting to him. Like she had hurt him.

Her words were full of earnest when she spoke again and Jane found himself unable to look away, caught under an eerie spell she was casting over him.

"It was genuine. Real. I didn't ask Red John for permission to befriend you. He was actually quite angry when he found out how…" – she seemed to actually struggle for words and she looked away, almost ashamedly – "close the five of us were getting. He was openly jealous about that. But I refused to…keep up my distance. It…it just felt good to have someone else apart from him. Someone entirely different."

Jane narrowed his eyes, and she reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. He knew she had a headache coming and he was asking himself why.

"What are you saying with that?" he asked.

She smiled at him. "What do you think I'm saying?"

He shook his head. "I've got no idea. Just a few hours ago you seemed ready to die for Red John's benefit. Now you actually appear a little desperate to me."

Lisbon nodded, staring at a spot slightly over his left shoulder.

"I probably am. You know, knowing Red John means leading a lonely life. By knowing him, I knew so much about humanity that made it seem…appalling. Too ordinary. He…was the only friend I had for a long time.

Until I came here, met Cho. Rigsby. Later, you and van Pelt. You added a new viewpoint to my life – but don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean Red John and I couldn't talk about everything. Those things just naturally differed from those I talked about to you. It was about who he is and who we were."

"So there's no "we" anymore?" Jane asked, suddenly hyper-aware of how little he knew of the woman sitting in front of him. He felt as if he'd known an entirely different person all the time – but he wasn't ready to let _that _go. That friendship they'd had.

"Hm?" Lisbon said, as if waking up from a dream – or as if she had just come back from a distant memory.

Were they – he and the team – already in the far away past for her? He was right in front of her, couldn't she see that?

"You said "who we _were_". Does that mean we aren't…friends anymore?"

Lisbon's green eyes met his for a split second and a shiver ran down his spine, before she looked at her hands on the table.

"I'd be very disappointed if it were over. But I think I have ruined it all knowingly. And, on top of that, willingly. I had to choose a priority – you or him – and you know there was no doubt which one it would be."

It made him sad, but he nodded. Then, he gathered all the courage left in him and said: "I don't want to give it all up."

That obviously caught her attention, because she raised her head and watched him curiously. Almost hopeful.

"You…" – he had to gulp hard – "were the only real friend I had in almost ten years. I don't want to…yeah, I don't want to lose you."

His words made her smile, but it faded quickly

"It's what you _want_, Mr. Jane. But can you _do_ it? Can you forgive me for knowing Red John? Loving him like a brother? Not handing him over to you or at least the police? Can you set it aside so easily?

I'd say no if I were you, because I'd feel betrayed. Hurt."

He nodded. "I know. And you are right. I am hurt, and I do feel betrayed. I can't believe you hid it from me all this time. It's not your ability to hide it, but your will to hide it, that hurts me. Your will to betray a friend.

But then, I guess, you would have betrayed a friend either way. You would have betrayed him if you had actually handed him over or betrayed me – _have _betrayed me – by not doing it. So, no. I can't set it aside."

Her eyes wandered back to her hands again and she seemed genuinely disappointed. "But…maybe we can…," he added, feeling helpless. "I don't know. Maybe at least the two of us can start anew again. Until you are sentenced, of course."

That comment made her smile warily.

He extended his hand towards her across the table. "I'm Patrick."

Lisbon raised her eyebrows – they had always worked on a surname basis - , but made to take his hand. When the handcuffs caught at her wrists and prevented her to reach him, he chuckled softly and took her hand in his.

"Teresa," she said, playing along in his game.

Jane released her hand and laid them on the tabletop while she sat back in her chair.

"So?" she asked.

Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrow. "What do you mean, so?"

"What do you want?"

He frowned. "What do I want?"

She rolled her eyes and it stung in his heart to see that gesture he'd made her use on him so often.

"What do you want, as in: Why are you still here? You got the confirmation you wanted from me. About how real our friendship was. Still is, if you want."

He had to suppress a relieved sigh.

"But what makes you stay sitting here? You could just go to not-sleep in your attic. Brood a little more about Red John, try to piece together who he is after the hints I dropped so purposefully."

Jane shrugged, trying to seem indifferent. "I can't think about him right now."

Lisbon – Teresa, now – narrowed her eyes at him. "There's something else bothering you, then. I can see the haunted look in your face."

He gulped. "I don't want you to go to prison!" he blurted out.

Immediately, Jane felt the urge to hide his face in his hands and he let out a sigh that meant to calm him down. It took him a few seconds to gather the courage and look her in the eyes.

He saw her face in a soft but sad expression. One he'd only seldom seen before.

"You know it's impossible. I'm the accomplice to a serial killer. They will charge me of not handing him to the police, disguising his murders and not helping his victims. And I will be found guilty."

Her words sounded so ultimate; she had already accepted what was to come. But he wasn't willing to give up so easily.

"Look," he said, keeping eye contact and leaning towards her over the table, "you are _my_ friend, too. And I don't want you wasting away your time in prison."

She gave her position up then, leaning towards him, too.

"But, you seem to forget, that I am also a traitor. I have kept one of the biggest things in my life from you. Why would you want to help me after what I have done to you?"

"Are you so intent on spending the rest of your life locked up in a prison cell?" he shot back at her, his voice sharper than he'd originally intended.

When she spoke again, her voice was venomous, but she hid it well. "No, but I know what I have to do. Still, this doesn't answer my question."

"Why do you even need an answer? If I were in your position, I'd jump at a chance to get away."

Lisbon let herself slump back against the chair once again.

"I told you I don't want to be rescued," she sighed as if she was telling a child for the umpteenth time it wasn't nice to steal other children's toys.

That made him go silent. Then: "Why?"

She sighed once more and shrugged. "I guess my life was destined to go this way the day I met him. I have known for a while that you would eventually get him."

She paused. "You are close, you know. To getting him. He is on your list of suspects."

"Why would you tell me this? You obviously want to protect him and now you tell me I'm close?"

"As I said before, it's what he wants, apparently. I'm still not happy with his decision, but that's the way it goes." She shot him a wistful smile. "I'll never see him again, but we'll always be close."

"And that's what made you give up your life for him? That's why you unveiled yourself, so you would be locked up, too? Because your life has lost its sole purpose?"

She nodded. "You got it. Although I wouldn't call him my _sole_ _purpose_. 'The most important person in my life' fits the description better.

And, believe it or not, catching criminals made it to a close second-favorite thing."

Jane snorted. "How ironic. Paradox, even."

"I know," Lisbon smiled.

Then Jane realized she'd almost made him forget what he'd been about to say in the first place. "Still, I don't want you to go to prison."

Her face sobered at once. "Don't try to talk me into something by saying a stupid thing like he's not worth it. He's been my best and only friend for a long time. He'd always be worth it."

Jane cringed at what she was saying, but continued. "Fine, then I won't. But you don't deserve prison."

"How would you know? You still don't know to what lengths I have gone to help, protect him, but you can guess from what I told you."

"Will you stop interrupting me?" Jane said, a little annoyed.

She raised her hands in a defending manner, then motioned as if she was zipping her mouth shut.

"Thank you. As I said, you don't deserve prison. You have done too much good in this world. You saved people" – she opened her mouth, about to say something, but he held up his hand, and she closed her mouth again, remembering her promise – "and, more importantly, you saved _me_."

Her eyes went round as saucers at his words. They were asking something along the lines of _What the hell are you implying?_

He went on: "I feel I should give something back.

Red John cares for you and you said he would have wanted you to live a normal life. Maybe he'd even be willing to help.

If he would say something that helps us make it look like he was forcing you to do this for him, that he had you at his complete mercy, not as a minion, but maybe by the means of blackmail, perhaps by threatening to harm your brothers, or by hypnotizing you –"

That was the second she linked together what he was saying and jumped out of her chair, trying to reach for him, but slumped ungracefully back into it as the handcuffs kept her from doing so.

The table jumped at her sudden movement and scraped across the floor with a shrieking sound.

She directed her narrowed eyes at him and he saw the anger simmering in them, the angry spark about to cause a flame that would turn into a fire and burn him to ashes.

Her voice was something between a shout and a snarky whisper: "No. If you do that, I swear I will kill you with my bare hands. I won't allow you to use him like that!"

The door burst open and Cho stood in the doorway, his gun drawn and pointed at Lisbon, Rigsby close behind him in the same posture.

They looked slightly confused at the scene before them, Lisbon looking like a tigress about to attack her prey and Jane staring at her, looking mildly scared. It was the first time they'd seen Jane scared of their boss – well, ex-boss.

Lisbon tried to control her heavy breathing, gritting her teeth; he could see it from the way her jaw set.

Slowly, he leant forward a little, intent on keeping up the eye contact. He saw her gulp and figured she had to restrain herself so she wouldn't lunge at him again.

"I thought we'd gotten past that last-name-barrier, _Teresa_."

Her nostrils widened and as she let out her breath, she said in a low, threatening voice: "I take that back, Mr. Jane. Call me anything you want, but _Teresa _is out of the picture."

"What happened in here?" asked Cho, lowering his gun but not putting it away.

Jane tore his gaze away from Lisbon and rose out of his chair, then brushed past Cho and Rigsby out of the interrogation room, leaving the woman behind him in her barely tamed rage. He gestured to the other two agents to follow him.

With a last look to make sure _the traitorous woman who was Lisbon_ was still in place, Cho closed the door of the interrogation room and followed Jane and Rigsby into the bullpen. Grace still had her head rested on her arms; breathing even and eyes closed.

"I need to talk all of you," Jane said, turning on his heel.

One of his hands he pushed into his jacket pocket, the other he held loosely at his side, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together – a sign that he was thinking very, very hard about something he needed to figure out.

Rigsby gently shook Grace's shoulder and she woke with a start.

"Huh?" she made, looking around a little confused.

"Jane wants to talk to us," Rigsby said, and she turned her head to look at him bowing over her, his hand still on her shoulder.

It took a second for the words to register. "Oh, yeah," she said then, straightening up.

Cho leaned against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. "So, Jane, what happened in there?"

"Where?" Grace asked, and Jane explained.

"I went back to the interrogation room. I needed to talk to Te-…Lisbon."

The three other agents exchanged short glances at his minor slip-up, then looked back at him. "We were just having a little dispute. It's nothing serious."

Rigsby apparently wanted to intervene and ask him what exactly he considered "nothing serious", but Jane already continued.

"Anyway, that isn't why I wanted to talk to you."

He made sure to look each of them in the eye before going on. "I want to help Lisbon so she won't have to go to prison."

Rigsby shifted uncomfortably on his spot, Grace's eyebrows shot up and Cho stood stock still – even more so than usual.

It took them thirty-six seconds to respond to his words, Jane counted them in his head.

"She's a traitor, Jane," Grace said in a low voice. She seemed utterly defeated.

He bowed his head. "I know. But she has also always been there for me – and for each of you."

His eyes wandered to each of them and he could see the goose bumps rising on their skin. It was getting to them – everything that had happened in the last few hours.

"She's been a great boss, a great leader, and I don't want her to go to prison."

Cho was the first to speak. "Neither do I. I'm in."

Grace's and Rigsby's eyes shot to him, before Rigsby looked back at Jane. "Just like that? I mean, she held back information about a serial killer, Jane."

Jane felt his insides grow cold. "Yes. She did, I am aware of that. But she is also our friend." Grace snorted. "Friend? Are you serious?"

He jabbed a finger at her. "See, that's exactly why I went back in there. I asked if our friendship was all a lie. She seemed very disappointed to lose what she had built up with us. What she was saying was real. She regrets having had to deceive us – or at least giving up the four of us as her friends."

"And you believed her?" Grace asked, unconvinced.

"Yes. You'll have to trust my judgment here, Grace," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "In the past, you have trusted me on so many things. Do it now."

"It was Lisbon who trusted you, not me and I sure am not trusting _her_ anymore," Grace retorted, crossing her arms over her chest like a stubborn child.

Jane shrugged. "Good. If you don't want to be in, that's fine. But then I must ask you to leave before I lay out my plan to the other two."

"Wait," Rigsby interrupted. "I haven't even agreed yet."

"Well then, do you agree, Rigsby?" Jane asked, knowing full well Rigsby would crumble under his stare.

He did, just a few seconds after squirming and gulping hard. "Yeah, I'm in."

Jane turned his gaze back to Grace and raised his eyebrows.

She blew out her breath through her nose, knowing she had no choice anyway, and rolled her eyes. "I hate you, Jane," she stage-whispered.

His usual mega-watt-smile lit up his face. "Great!"

"So, what's the plan?" Cho asked, seeming almost eager to get to work to free his boss of the charges awaiting her.

It didn't matter to Jane how illogical his choice was. It had been his job to do illogical things, he sure wasn't going to stop now. The plan had already taken shape in Jane's head.

"First, we have to find Red John as fast as possible. Then we make him say something that proves he approached and hypnotized Lisbon into not giving away who he is until it was needed _only very recently_ so she won't be accounted for covering for the serial killer who's her supposed friend."

"So you basically want to make it look like Red John hypnotized our boss only a short while ago into becoming a lunatic _thinking _Red John's her best friend?" Cho summarized and Jane grimaced at his words.

"You make it sound so despicable, but, yes. Our biggest problem is probably that she doesn't want our help. She has accepted she is going to go to prison and we should do our best to change her opinion."

"But still," van Pelt added, "we'll have to take her to prison until we find Red John to free her."

"Yes. But I think that plan is pretty good.

My guess is that she'll be evaluated by shrinks and such people to see for her mental state if we tell them we suspect she's been manipulated.

As long as we don't have Red John yet, she'll be called a lunatic, but the second we get those words out of him, she'll be re-evaluated, it'll be found that she has been hypnotized into doing what she has done and hasn't actually known Red John all her life and, therefore, can't have covered up his doings as she has claimed.

Then she'll only be a poor woman attacked by a serial killer who's still got his dirty fingers inside her head.

I'm hoping for the shrink's pity to discharge her and not put her into an institution. That sure _would_ drive her insane."

"If she isn't now," van Pelt added.

"She's not," Cho said.

That made Grace and Rigsby take a very sudden interest in their feet – proof they weren't really convinced.

"Cho's right. Real lunatics are different. Her mind seems too clear to me, too stable."

"Insanity isn't always obvious, Jane," van Pelt interjected.

His voice turned hard. "I know. But I'm not willing to believe he has pushed her that far – broken her. Because she sure would have slipped up earlier if she was. We would have noticed."

It wasn't only for Grace, Rigsby and Cho's reassurance he said these words – it was for his own sanity as well.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Cho asked, and Grace sighed upon turning back to her computer.

"What do we have, Jane? Any new insights?"

What he was about to say made Jane smile. "Actually, yes."


	5. Chapter 5

Hello guys!

I'm back with chapter 5. I just wanted you to know that I won't go into the chase and arrest of Red John, as I am not very good in writing such things. But you will have a name to go with him. My choice is different from that in the series itself, because I just thought it...not so fitting.

Again, I want to thank my guest reviewers!

Enjoy :)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

It took them less time than he had estimated to find and catch Red John.

The second he saw the man sitting in his living room in an armchair, sipping at his tea and listening to Bach, he knew he'd found the right person.

And he remembered the many times Lisbon had tried to talk him out of killing the man – now he understood it wasn't only her concern for his sanity and his future speaking, but also her concern for her killer friend.

Still, just to prove a point, he restrained himself, feeling a strange calm wash over him. She was safe now, that was all he could think of the second he walked in the door.

ooo

Now he was standing in the prison's visitor room.

Next to him there was already another woman in an orange prison gown sitting in front of a man who was smiling a watery smile at the woman.

He nervously stuck his hands in his jacket's pockets and counted the dirty spots on the concrete floor beneath his feet – until a heavy metal door creaked open and his head shot up. As always, her face was neutral when she walked in. That orange didn't suit her. It was making her pale skin seem white as a sheet.

Her eyes turned hard when she saw him, and she sat down at the table not looking at him. Jane waited until the police officer who would watch over them had taken his place, then sat across from her.

He noticed her watching his hands which he'd laid on the top of the table out of the corner of her eye. It surprised him when she beat him to speaking first.

"Something's different today," she said.

"So?" Jane asked, almost tired of her games of giving vague statements and making him ask for answers he wouldn't get in the end.

He really had underestimated her will to not-talk to him ever since the happenings of the interrogation room.

"Yes. During the last three and a half weeks since my incarceration, every single one of the times you came to see me, you'd start fiddling with your wedding ring a few seconds after you sat down. Not today. Why?"

She didn't unmask her curiosity but didn't keep it exactly hidden, either.

He took a moment before he responded. It was easy to put his message into words, but fairly hard to actually speak them.

"We found Red John."

She didn't freeze, but neither did she burst into tears or scream or do anything, really. Just sitting there, she kept staring at his hands until she raised her head.

"Did you?"

Her voice was cold, very much emotionless, and she seemed to have trouble concentrating as if her mind was thinking too rapidly about too many things.

"His name is Raymond Haffner," Jane said, watching her closely.

He suspected - hoped - that the spell Red John had cast over her through hypnosis would fade once he'd get found out as who he was. He had hoped to find the trigger once he'd found Red John.

Lisbon squinted her eyes shut and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"You're giving me a headache," she growled as if he should know better.

"I know. Has Red John ever told you how you could get rid of that barrier he set up in your head?"

She shook her head. "No. Anyway, why is it important to you? As long as you don't kill him before he has given you all the answers you want you don't need me to answer them for him, so it doesn't matter if there's a barrier in my head or not."

"How do you know I haven't already killed him?" Jane asked, trying to raise doubt inside her. It took two to play a game of deception. "It's what I have ranted on about for years."

Lisbon smiled bitterly. "Yes, I know. But you said "his name is". If he was dead, you'd say "his name was". So, no, you haven't killed him. Yet."

"No, not yet."

"I wouldn't put it past you to try and sneak yourself into his cell so you could complete your task of revenge," she said sourly.

He didn't think he could, now. Not anymore. Not if it meant hurting her, too. In more than one way – it would mean betraying her by killing Red John despite her pleas not to and by killing her best friend.

Jane replayed the words he had spoken to Red John before he and the team had turned on the recording tape. This would remain their secret – and Red John's, he was sure of that.

_He sat calmly across from Haffner and didn't hesitate to speak. It was strange how little it affected him to have the killer of his family within arm's reach and yet do nothing. _

_"Lisbon's still standing up for you," he said. _

_"She's a loyal woman," he smiled, wistful. _

_Jane almost couldn't believe what he was going to do. Yet he knew he had to. _

_"Haffner, I know the two of you are close. And I know you want to protect her. It's as much as she let through and I believe her." _

_Haffner narrowed his eyes a little, but nodded, not quite getting where it was all going to lead. _

_"I want to protect her, too," Jane continued, feeling his insides turn as hard as ice, "but I need your help for that. If you don't want her to waste the rest of her life in prison, even if that's what she wants, then you are going to help me." _

_Haffner cocked his head to one side, seemingly considering Jane's words. _

_"You're right," he said eventually, "I told her she didn't have to reveal herself, but she insisted. I still don't understand why. She could have lead a perfectly normal life and she'd never have been connected to me by the police." _

_He paused, tapping his right forefinger against his lower lip. "So, what do you need me to do?" he asked after a few seconds. _

_Jane made the corners of his mouth turn upwards, although he didn't feel like smiling at all. He told him all the details he had talked through with the team time and again. _

_In the end, he repeated: "Tell the jury you hypnotized her. Tell them whatever you can come up with, but you have to resent the idea you have ever had her as a childhood friend, no matter how much she protests. _

_Say you simply planted that idea in her head, picked her as your messenger because she was the lead agent on your case. It'll make the jury think she is mentally damaged and make them reconsider their charges. My guess is they'll let her be evaluated by shrinks and let her go in the end." _

_Not fully convinced, Haffner raised his eyebrows. "And what if she's going to end up in a mental health institution? That's no better than going to prison." _

_Jane shook his head. "She won't." _

_"How can you be so sure?" "_

_My friends and I have already let the shrinks that diagnosed her as a potential danger to civilians, know that _we_ think she's only very shaken up be the ideas you planted in her mind. They aren't convinced yet that she is merely collateral damage in your quest of making a very memorable, very theatrical exit from your career of killing people, but with your word, we'd be able to _make_ them believe." _

_To his surprise, Haffner grinned at him. "I actually planned on doing something similar. You have only cemented my decision is right. Deal." _

_Jane shot him a short smile and gestured at the one-way-mirror behind him for Cho to come in and van Pelt to start recording the interview. _

Never had Jane thought he would work together with Red John for the same goal.

"Mr. Jane?" a mocking voice broke through his thoughts. He looked back to Lisbon who was smirking.

"Am I such boring company that you feel the need to wander off into your daydreams?"

Jane sighed and adjusted his sitting position. "The trial of your good old friend Red John is given top priority. They are working on shoving it in as soon as possible, so I estimate it will take something around six months until it starts. You are, of course, the number one witness."

"You, too."

Another sigh, accompanied by a nod. "Yeah."

"Ready to testify against him instead of pulling his heart out between his ribs?" she said, once again mocking him.

"Just remember it's your last opportunity to see him," Jane mumbled, before pushing the chair away from the table and rising.

He could see his words had momentarily stunned her as if they were finally making her see the truth, and was glad she couldn't gather her thoughts to strike another blow against him.

_It seems to have become her favorite thing to do to me_, he thought while walking past numerous steel barred doors.

It didn't suit her to be so bitter and he knew it took her a lot of strength to say the things she was saying the way she was saying them. He could see in her eyes that it hurt her to insult someone who had once been a friend, but he also understood it was her only way of defense. Like a cobra that would attack once feeling threatened.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello fellow readers!

I am back yet again, still pestering you with what I have written :)

You have to know that I have got absolutely no idea what being in court is like, so I don't know how it all works and stuff. I'm taking a little liberty here, please don't kill me for it ;)

As always, thanks to you, Guest, for your review!

Disclaimer: You know, this is hard for me to admit...but I don't actually _own_ The Mentalist. What I do here is proof that I have too much free time to fantasize about things I shouldn't be fantasizing about. But it's too much fun to give it up...just like chocolate.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Just as he had promised, Lisbon was called to make her statement in court six months and a half week later. She was led in flanked by a police officer to each her left and her right and Jane close behind her. He had insisted on coming in with her, the team was already waiting inside.

They had taken turns of visiting her during the time until Red John's trial, only allowed to come by once a week, trying to make her open up, but ever since Jane had suggested she make Red John say something that could actually save her from a lifelong prison sentence, she had refused to talking much.

He thought he was the person she talked to the least. Only when it suited her did she answer, but mostly he was talking in soliloquies.

Cho didn't speak much himself, but she talked to him, the agent even had reported she'd smiled at him a few times.

Grace still didn't make much effort to hide her aversion against her former boss, so she always returned even grumpier than when she'd gone in to talk to Lisbon. It seemed the two women continually sparred.

Rigsby, the good soul of the team at the time, made her talk the most. He'd been the first to distinct the faint Irish lilt to Lisbon's language that had begun to uncover.

"I tried to get rid of it," she had said to Rigsby, smiling, "but it's hard, it just keeps coming back. Red John kept teasing me about it."

"I just wish the lawyers would have been so fast with setting up a trial when we were still working cases," she said, seeming a little exasperated but Jane had the distinct feeling she was just trying to hide how nervous she really was.

Jane didn't respond but threw her one last look before separating from her and taking his own seat in the crowd that was watching next to Cho. After a few more minutes, the judge entered the room and took his place, waiting for the quickly dying murmur to turn into silence. He then proceeded as the protocol wanted it, it was explained who was charged for what and the process began – only this time it wasn't a boring, lullaby-like process to Jane. This time was important.

It was difficult for Jane to keep an eye on Haffner, who was guarded by two heavily armed police officers – more were positioned everywhere in the room -, and Lisbon at the same time, who was sitting next to another armed-to-the-teeth officer two rows behind him. The good thing was that he was sitting on the right side of the aisle and Lisbon on the left side, so his eyes kept darting from Haffner to Lisbon to the judge, back to Haffner.

After the judge had reviewed all the evidence that pointed to Haffner as Red John and had asked the man a few questions to which he didn't say a single word and only commented with a smirk – Jane was sure he only did this to prolong the process; he could as well have sped it all along by simply admitting to what he'd done, but he wanted to see the judge and jury squirm for a little longer.

The judge gave a sigh and said: "I would like to talk to Teresa Lisbon now, please."

All eyes darted to her, who just followed the police officer. Her hands had been cuffed in front of her and the metal clattered a little. Still she held her head high and took a seat in the witnesses' position.

Jane was anxious to hear what she was going to say. Would she just keep quiet, like Haffner? _No_, he thought, _she will probably follow through with his wish to be sentenced as the monster he is. _

"Miss Teresa Lisbon, you have stated that you know Raymond Haffner, also known as Red John."

Lisbon nodded. "In fact, we have been childhood friends."

"You confirm that this man is said serial killer?"

She briefly looked at her hands but avoided looking at her friend.

Haffner, on the other side, was watching her intently, as if willing her to say the right thing. Jane thought his concern for her was quite evident in his face.

"Yes."

"I wonder why you are so willingly telling us your friend is a murderer?"

She sighed, and her eyes quickly flickered to Haffner, who locked her gaze to his, but Lisbon looked away again. If Jane wasn't mistaken he could see the woman gulp.

"We have discussed this. It is what he wants."

The lawyer who was defending the issue for the sunny state of California turned to Haffner. Jane had been surprised to see Haffner had gotten himself a lawyer, too, but the man hadn't uttered a single word yet. And, Jane knew, he wouldn't. Haffner had only done it to spite the lawsuits.

"Mr. Haffner," the lawyer spat, "do you confirm that this woman has known you for the better part of your life? We have heard doubts about her believability."

Lisbon's head snapped upwards. "What?"

Haffner almost unnoticeably shook his head as if warning her. "I am sorry, but I have to say that I have left her under _the illusion_ of being my long-loved childhood friend. I needed someone in my final game with Mr. Jane" – he paused purposefully – "to start it all."

"And how did you convince her to participate in said _game_?"

"Is this _my_ trial or are we trying to save Miss Lisbon's sanity by asking such irrelevant questions?"

Jane knew this was just a strategy to make the jury believe he didn't care about Lisbon. To seem a little more like the cold-hearted killer he was.

"Answer me, Mr. Haffner."

"It's simple, really," Haffner said after sneering at the lawyer a little longer. "I caught her in an unguarded moment, tranquilized her by the means of a taser and took her someplace secluded, then hypnotized her into doing it."

An excited murmur filled the room, but Jane's eyes were on Lisbon.

On the outside, she didn't show many signs of distress. Maybe her posture was a little more rigid than normal, or her shoulders were more drawn back than usual, but no one who didn't know her as well as him would have noticed.

The only thing that showed how hurt she was by being denied by her best friend was her eyes: They had glazed over, but the tears did not spill. He had to congratulate her on her self-control.

"Well then," the judge intruded, "I would say we release Miss Lisbon from more questions as we obviously cannot rely on the viability of her words and talk to –"

"You know what?" interrupted Red John, and the surprised silence following his words stunned everyone.

Lisbon, who had risen from her chair and had been about to follow the police officer back to her place, stopped dead in her tracks, the judge just stared with two sheets of paper in his right hand, although it would have been his duty to call for order from Haffner and put a fee on him. Everyone else – some more or less literally – held their breath.

"I thought it would be fun to draw this out, see you go through the motions of a normal trial until your breath runs out and you pant like a hunting dog," Haffner said, leaning back in his chair.

"But I suddenly feel like this is not in anyone's interest, least of all in mine. So I will give you this: I don't deny what I did. I have killed more than thirty people. Many more, actually; I will happily name you everyone you don't know of yet. Maybe it will close some of your cold cases.

But I also have to be sincere: I am not sorry for it."

The ensuing silence didn't last long.

"Well, that certainly makes it easier on the jury," the judge said, and the twelve people rose from their seats to discuss the measures that were to be taken.

Jane – who had now been spared a statement himself - was convinced it wouldn't take them long. Still he filed out with the rest of the crowd and met the team outside the doors of the courtroom. They didn't say a word, only turned their heads as they heard a familiar pattern of footsteps approaching their little group.

Jane didn't even have to turn around to see who it was.

Lisbon had rid herself of her second and third armed shadows successfully, but Jane figured it wouldn't be long until the officers had her back with them again – in fact, the men were already on their way over to them.

"You," her cold voice hissed.

That finally made him turn to face her. Her face was ashen and her eyes blazed at him with a different fire from all the others he had seen in them ever before. He was sure he recognized hatred when he saw it.

"Did you talk to him before this?" she snarled. "Did you _make_ him deny me?"

Her voice didn't raise or hitch, but her breath was speeding up rapidly.

"You know he did it to protect you," he retorted, feeling anger rise up inside of him.

Why couldn't she understand this was about her, not about Haffner?

She gave a low growl and stepped closer, opening her mouth for another attack.

"I have restrained myself from killing him with my own bare hands so he could do this for you!" he added, mirroring her rage.

"Oh," she shrieked, "how thoughtful of you! How many damn times in the past months have I told you that I – don't - want – to – be – fucking – protected!"

"He told me himself he planned on doing it _anyway_."

Lisbon wasn't able to hold back the desperation she must have harbored over the last months. "Then why the hell didn't you talk him out if it! You _convinced_ him to do it, didn't you?!"

Her attempt at a predatory grin only served to contort her pretty face. "Don't I deserve it?! After all, I betrayed you, didn't I?!"

Her fury was reaching its fever pitch, and he watched her chest heave, in almost the same posture just like when he'd left her in the interrogation room – ready to attack. Before she could do that, however, one of the officers who had accompanied her took hold of her shoulders.

Jane gestured at Lisbon and looked at the officer: "I suggest she should not be taken back in. She's completely delusional."

That made Lisbon finally show her anger in its full force. She threw herself against the officer's restraining hands, trying to shake him off and lunge at Jane.

"You son of a bitch!"

"See?" Jane said. "She is still under Haffner's influence. He's keeping his dirty little fingers in her mind, still playing his crazy game with her thoughts."

All of a sudden, Lisbon stilled, no longer trying to get rid of the officer's iron grip. Jane saw once again how her eyes filled with tears, and how she tried to get air, but she seemed to have run out of it in her fight against her restraint.

The only word she managed to get out was a strangled "liar" and Jane already started to turn away, when her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped to the floor, limp as a beautiful porcelain puppet.

With two strides he was at her side, gathering her head off the floor and cradling it in his lap. He didn't care that all the people in the foyer had fallen silent and were watching him; he just told the officer who was standing there and staring as if he'd grown a second head – or possibly a third, as everyone who met him treated him as if he'd _already _grown a second head anyway – to go get a doctor.

Van Pelt walked over on stiff legs and crouched down next to him.

"She still breathing?"

Jane chuckled and shook his head lightly. "You expect her to drop dead after this? I think she has been through much worse. This is well played theater. Oscar-worthy performance, don't you think?"

He was thinking of the death of her mother, raising her three brothers on her own while dealing with her abusive drunk-off-his-ass father; and van Pelt knew it. She didn't comment on it.

Instead, she said: "Do you think our plan is working?"

She was keeping her voice ridiculously low.

"I think so, yes," Jane replied, one hundred percent sure of it.

Lisbon's shock or heart attack or whatever had just happened to her only served to prove that particular point.

Almost subconsciously, Jane brushed a strand of Lisbon's curly black hair out of her face and that was when he heard the sirens of an ambulance and their fading squeal, as the car stopped outside the courthouse. He complied as three paramedics rushed in, one of them telling him to step aside.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Oh hiatus, thou art too long for what little wit I have in my posession. 'Tis a good thing thou art almost o'er.

(Don't know what made me write that...still, only roughly 9 days! Yay!...Oh my god, _still nine days. Yay.)_


	7. Chapter 7

Hello again!

Thank you for your reviews and for the two new favs :) Means a lot to me, really!

I hope you enjoy - let me know what you think!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

When Lisbon awoke, she found herself alone in a darkened hospital room. The blinds were drawn and she was thankful for that, as she had an all-too-familiar headache throbbing behind her temples. This type could only be caused by Patrick Jane.

As if speaking of the devil, the door flew open and the man himself strode into the room. When he saw she was awake, he stopped and grinned.

"You again," Lisbon said coolly, sitting up.

"You had a breakdown," Jane said and stuck his hands in his pockets.

Lisbon rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. That movement was so familiar to Jane that he felt tears prick at his eye's corners.

He evidently was very emotional. Not his usual state of being. Jane told himself that he had to get himself back in line.

"I hyperventilated. That's a different thing," she said, and her stubbornness similar to a child's made Jane want to laugh despite his sadness.

He didn't laugh, though. He just kept smiling. Then he proceeded to set his plan in action – his plan to find out if she really disliked him so much now.

"You played your role of hating me for the last few months very well. Today was a very convincing performance, if I may say so. Lashing out at me. Brilliant."

Lisbon didn't take the bait though. "Oh, I wasn't - still am not - _playing a role_."

There was the anger again, simmering away behind her eyes, "You, Mr. Jane, are the one person in this world I really hate right now."

The devilish smile making her dimple appear sent a spear to his heart. She wasn't lying. And he hated that it devastated him so much.

"How long was I out?" she asked.

"Several hours," Jane said, leaving her in the dark as to how long exactly. He found she didn't have to know.

"What did I miss? I take it Red John's sentence has been spoken?"

Jane nodded. "Death penalty."

"As expected," she said, seemingly at ease with that fact.

Suddenly, he felt angry at her for that – for looking like she didn't care.

"How can you be okay with that? Your best friend is going to be dead, and believe me, they're not going to make him wait long, not like all the other poor bastards waiting for their last meal in death row. The public wants him dead, and so he will be, so it is going to be over once and for all."

He put his hands on his hips, taking a three-step-trek up and down in her room, trying to keep his anger in check. When he heard her take a deep breath, as if she was trying to hold back tears, he stopped and looked up. Her eyes were teary, but she didn't cry.

"Do you really think I don't care? Do you believe I didn't cry myself to sleep for a week after he told me he was going to…going to let you catch him? The one person _capable_ of catching him? The one person capable of _killing_ him with his bare hands if necessary?

I thought I was going to choke up my heart, _Mr. Jane_, while trying not to throw up on his living room carpet when he told me he was okay with dying, no matter if it was at your hand or the state's.

Because I wasn't okay with it back then. Knowing that I would last see him across a courtroom broke my heart."

A single tear managed to sneak out of her left eye, but she brushed it away before it could get far. She then let herself sink back into the pillows, sighing heavily and closing her eyes.

"Anyway," she said after a while, "why am I in a hospital? I fainted. That's it. I don't need to be here."

Jane cocked his head, looking at her somber face. "The paramedics decided to bring you in. The doctor said you were suffering from mild dehydration and that your blood sugar was extremely low. Said that you lacked loads of sleep, too."

Her lips curved up slightly. "It's my normal condition. I have been running on that for ten years and longer and been perfectly fine, so there's no need to worry. They didn't give me an IV either, so my being here is really not necessary."

Jane ducked his head and looked at the floor. He knew he had to be careful with what he said now. "This is the psychiatric ward."

Her eyes snapped open and she sat up bolt right in her bed. "What?"

"After what Haffner said about manipulating you, everyone thought it best to take you here until they know what to do with you."

"And you didn't stop them."

"No, because I think it's the best for you at the moment. It cements what the jury believes about you."

She made a low growling sound in her throat and he genuinely feared for his own health as she climbed out of bed and closed in on him.

"You made me look like a fool, like a woman easily manipulated," she snarled and it wouldn't have surprised Jane if she'd shown her teeth, too.

"Haffner did that. Not me. All the people back there don't know he and I are in this together." Saying it out loud made it ever so much stranger to being in an agreement with his nemesis.

Lisbon stepped even closer. "One: You _made _him do this. You probably just gave him all the confirmation he needed to prove to himself he was making the right decision, although I had told him I didn't want it. And two: _I_ know you are in this together.

And now I look incredibly stupid for supposedly letting myself be hypnotized by a serial killer although I'm supposed to be an investigator who _catches_ serial killers."

Jane smiled a little, even though it looked incredibly sad.

"One," he said, using her own words, "Many people would have let him hypnotize them because they simply are scared of him and wouldn't exactly want to die.

And two…even smart people have low thresholds for hypnosis."

She made as if she wanted to grab him and throw him up against the wall, but she stopped mid-movement and let her hands – which were balled into fists – fall to her side. Without another word, she threw herself onto the hospital bed. There it was again, her childish stubbornness.

"In case you didn't notice yet - you're only wearing a hospital gown," he remarked, and he didn't need to look at her to know she was blushing furiously and tugging at the hem of the cloth to make it cover more than the upper part of her thighs.

He left the room.


	8. Chapter 8

Hey guys,

sorry it took so long to update this, but somehow, the upload didn't quite work out, so I had to figure something out, which took me a while ;)

Well, as always, thanks to Guest for reviewing!

Be aware that I don't know much about psychologists or how they operate. The same goes for judges, so please don't judge me (ha, no pun intended).

Hope you enjoy - let me know what you think!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

The next day, Lisbon was to meet a psychologist to evaluate her "state of mind". Jane was currently alone with said psychologist, a woman, in her typical psychologist's office, having insisted on sitting by the conversation.

The team had uttered doubts about Lisbon to anyone they thought might be useful. They had told them she didn't behave like herself or like the typical 'killer's asset'. Jane had stressed on numerous occasions that he thought she had been influenced by the means of hypnosis.

But Lisbon had refused any kind of cooperation with anyone who had remote connections to the job description of "psychologist". When she'd been brought into interrogation rooms to "talk", she had mostly remained silent or spoken in curt, clipped sentences, revealing nothing about herself. Seven psychologists had tried talking to her, none of them had succeeded.

Of course it had been tried to watch her from afar – for example her behavior during meals or in working groups -, although it had provided nothing helpful in the least, Jane had seen to that.

Lisbon had been described as _dangerously secluded. _Other words had come up, such as _secretive, wary, easily riled up_.

Sure, it didn't look well for her psyche from the shrinks' point of view, but the rest of the team had of course known the reasons for Lisbon's behavior: the constant prodding and Jane's suggestion she use her friend for walking free.

The psychologists had complained about the team being continually allowed to see Lisbon and not them, too. The team had explained to the psychologists that they _had _seen Lisbon – a few times each, until every other meeting had been deemed not useful by the police because she wouldn't speak.

Jane was almost proud of Lisbon for her holding her walls up. He had seen some tapes of the psychologists' fruitless tries of interrogating her. It was hilarious. They were all failing miserably. Jane thought they were rather bad at doing their job.

"So, Mr. Jane," Doctor Willowman, specialized in analyzing murders and those who committed them and described as "the best they had", said, "You are an expert on hypnotism, I heard?"

He bowed his head. "I have learned hypnotism from my father, and it has proven helpful in my past. On occasion I free people of their addictions, smoking, for example."

If the good doctor had known that he'd learned it from a carnie and also used it to manipulate people, she would have kicked him out immediately. Probably reported him to the police, too.

At times like these working _with_ the police came in handy.

But she didn't, so she gave him a sweet smile. "Then I think it's best for you to witness this conversation. Although" – she turned serious – "I hope your former connection to Miss Lisbon won't taint your opinion."

Jane looked her deep in the eyes, taking on his most serious and at the same time most hypnotic voice. "I promise, I am not biased. Look into my eyes, and you can see it there. Can't you? Do you see it? I am not biased."

He couldn't help calling himself a liar in his own thoughts, though.

"Very well," Dr. Willowman said, unblinking, and then there was a strong knock on the door, not permitting her to doubt his words.

She flinched and looked at the door, a little confused.

_For being called "the best they had", it was frighteningly easy to get under her skin_, Jane thought.

"Yes, please," she said, shaking her head a little to rid herself of that irksome feeling she'd just had creeping under her skin because of Jane's intense gaze.

A man poked his head in the door, wearing a tweed suit.

"Dr. Willowman? I'm Henry Graser," he said.

Jane frowned, but Dr. Willowman obviously had expected the man.

"Ah, yes, we've spoken on the phone!" she said, smiling broadly, standing up and shaking the man's hand.

"Come in, come in. Have a seat; our subject will be here soon."

It was hard to resist the urge to roll his eyes at her calling Lisbon a "subject", but Jane kept himself from doing it.

Instead, he turned to Dr. Willowman. "May I ask…?"

She looked at him for a second before understanding what he was talking about.

"Oh, yes. This is a colleague of the profession, Dr. Graser. He will be helping me with this case; I thought it a bad idea to handle this alone. It's a delicate matter, isn't it?"

Her words should remind Jane that he was meant to have no say in this _matter_, only be an advisor _if needed_ – but, of course, he had other plans.

Just then, the door opened again and a police officer walked in, Lisbon with her hands in cuffs one step behind him, her eyes on the floor, apparently deep in thought. Maybe she was trying to think up a way of convincing the psychologists of the truth, but Jane was positive it would be in vain.

"Hello Miss Lisbon," Dr. Willowman chimed, and gestured to the couch facing the two armchairs on the other side of a glass table.

Lisbon looked at her warily, and then noticed the other two men in her company. When her eyes met Jane's she frowned.

"What's he doing here?" she asked, showing her annoyance very openly.

"Mr. Jane will give us some advice on hypnotism. You surely know he has some experience with it," Dr. Willowman answered, taking a seat herself.

"I do, yes. After all, we've worked together for nearly ten years," Lisbon responded and gave Jane a mock smile.

Then she turned to Dr. Willowman. "But then you have to know I wasn't hypnotized, so his presence is absolutely unnecessary."

"Denial is very common," Jane said, not averting his eyes from Lisbon's, "you don't want to give up the memories he planted in your head as false. It would mean you have been living under an illusion, probably even having a weak mind. You were a cop; a weak mind isn't what you're supposed to have. So it's natural to deny it."

Lisbon shot him her death glare, but was distracted by the police officer taking off the handcuffs. She then slumped more or less gracefully onto the couch Dr. Willowman had indicated earlier.

Jane rose from his seat so Dr. Graser could take his place and settled himself on the other end of the couch.

"So, Teresa," Dr. Graser began, and earned himself another glare from Lisbon at the use of her first name, "what do you say for yourself: Do you believe Raymond Haffner is your friend? One you have known ever since your childhood?"

Lisbon was leaning back into the cushions.

"I'll tell you what I have told the judge yesterday.

Yes, I have known him for the last thirty years. And would you mind stop saying his name? It gives me a headache."

"Another sign of hypnotism, he made it unbearable to hear, least of all _say_ his name so she wouldn't give away his identity too easily. He wanted her to be a source of information _only_ for the police, the one to provide the pieces of the puzzle," Jane chimed in.

He saw Lisbon close her eyes and take a deep breath to keep herself from doing something rash. This was the truth, anyway – he had hypnotized her into _that._ But the psychologists didn't know that.

"Would you mind telling me some of the memories you have from your youth with him?" Dr. Willowman asked.

"You don't want to tell me you think they're real, do you? Because you don't," Lisbon said angrily, "but I'll tell you something: They are. I don't think a mind is powerful enough to conjure up memories that aren't even true to fill the last _thirty years_."

Dr. Willowman gave her a sympathetic smile. "Sometimes a human mind is much stronger and capable of much more than we would dare to believe."

Lisbon groaned and hung her head. This was going to be a lengthy conversation that would be running in circles again and again, and she knew it.

Additionally, Jane seemed more than eager to feed the psychologists even more doubt about what she told them to be real.

It was going to take her a lot of nerves. But she was not going to give in.

000

Three hours later and after a mild outburst of Lisbon, Jane was once again alone with the two psychologists. He had hated to sow so much bad word about Lisbon, making them question her although he knew she was perfectly normal.

Jane had questioned her sanity only once in the past and that was when she'd talked about her fascination while watching Red John kill. But he was convinced she'd mistaken fear for fascination.

His guess was that Haffner had scared her while killing so she was paralyzed. Now she was only trying to talk something bad into the opposite.

Still she didn't waver or cave in her opinion about what he and Haffner had set up. So he decided to talk to Dr. Willowman and Graser.

"I think that the effects of Haffner's hypnosis will wear off eventually."

What he meant by that was that Lisbon would sooner or later tell the shrinks what they wanted to hear to have them off her back. She would tell them she questioned her memories about Haffner and her friendship with him as long as it satisfied the psychologists.

"You think? I believe you when you see all the signs for hypnotism used in here," Dr. Graser said, "and Miss Lisbon seems to be very irritated" – that was Jane's doing, too; he'd done as much as he could to make her appear just that – "and like she doesn't know what to do next."

"Well, that's because she doesn't," Jane responded, "I believe she is intent on not showing her own doubts about her memories about Haffner. She is confused as to what to think and what will happen to her.

She has no place to go in case she comes free. She would be completely alone; her brothers have not responded well to hearing about what has happened, her parents are dead and her friends…I don't know."

He shrugged, trying to look helpless.

"Don't you think it would be best for her to set her up in a resort so she can recover?" Dr. Willowman suggested.

Jane raised his eyebrows. "You mean psychiatry?"

Dr. Graser nodded, looking at him sympathetically. "You were friends, weren't you?"

"Yes. And I don't want her to be locked away in a building with white halls, full of fake-smiling nurses."

Dr. Graser sighed. "We can't just let her loose. We don't know what other suggestions Haffner planted in her head. She could do something to others. Or herself."

Jane shook his head. "I don't think so. If he had, she would have tried to do harm to others – or herself - long ago, not wait until she was free. Those kinds of defense mechanisms you are talking about kick in at the first opportunity, and she had plenty of them. Maybe those opportunities weren't obvious to the normal eyes of a witness, but to her as a trained cop, they were evident.

No, I don't think she's a danger to anyone. And neither to herself."

Both doctors raised their eyebrows.

"You just said, you were friends. Are you sure you're seeing this clearly enough?" Dr. Graser wanted to know.

Jane looked at Dr. Willowman. "I had that little conversation with Dr. Willowman earlier, didn't I?" he said, and he saw she remembered.

She stared at him for a few seconds before nodding her head.

"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "we did. When is her meeting with the judge scheduled?"

"It's set next week. And I wouldn't call it a _meeting_; it's an _interrogation_ the judge ordered to distinguish if she has been involved with Haffner or not, and if so, if she's capable to stand up for what she _says _she did. They're going to need your report, too. Why?"

Dr. Willowman looked at her colleague.

"I think we should talk to her some more, but I believe the judge will see that she has no reliable memory and should not be taken too seriously because it cannot be clearly distinguished what is the truth and what suggestion.

It probably would be best if we learned more about how to draw that line so we can help the judge out. Then it is up to the judge to decide what is going to happen to her."

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Hallelujah, the hiatus is finally over! I don't know about you, but I liked Black Helicopters, despite the lack of Lisbon. (Hey, "lack of Lisbon" adds up to "loL"...okay, I'm childish, I know.)


	9. Chapter 9

Hey there!

I'm back again. We are slowly moving towards where I want this story to go.

I have got no idea if the scenario I am making up here is in any way realistic, but that's how I want to go in order to achieve what I intend to do with this story.

Also, thanks for reading this. Und danke für das neue Fav, gwendolineB :)

Let me know what you think! Enjoy!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

"Miss Lisbon, you are here today because we want to see if your mental state justifies letting you walk freely. If yes, a way of further procedure will be worked out by Dr. Willowman and Dr. Graser."

She sat patiently in the interrogation room, waiting for what would happen next, trying to wear a mask of indifference, maybe even boredom, but most of all she wanted to look like she didn't care. Jane, who was standing on the other side of the one way mirror together with the rest of the team, was sure of that. Her posture was rigid, and she was watching the judge's assistant warily.

The team and Jane were aware that the outcome of this interrogation was actually already settled. Both the attorney and the judge had walked into the interrogation room convinced about Lisbon's state of mind and that she only had to see the truth about her false memories. The attorney put down his papers and leant forward. The judge next to him watched Lisbon's face intently.

"May I ask you a few questions, Miss Lisbon?" the attorney asked, his voice dripping of fake warmth and the real pity he felt because of what had supposedly happened to Lisbon which was not hiding very well.

She gave him an obviously faked smile. "Sure."

"You have stated you have been in alliance with the serial killer Red John, whose real name has been revealed to be Raymond Haffner. Is that true?"

It didn't escape Jane that she flinched slightly at the mention of her friend's name. He saw the slight crunch that appeared in between her eyebrows that was the first sign of an impending headache, but all he could do was staring at her and listen to her bitter voice coming through the speakers.

"I wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true but everyone seems very reluctant to believe me. I wonder why that is?"

"Well, as you know some of your colleagues have mentioned it would not fit your character. Dr. Willowman and Dr. Graser, who have been talking to you very often about your past with Raymond Haffner" – again she flinched, and Jane could see the twitch in her right hand, as if she had to suppress the urge to reach up and pinch the bridge of her nose – "over the past few days, have confirmed the suspicion that you have been left under the suggestion of his friendship by the means of hypnosis."

"And that's a lie," Lisbon interrupted.

The attorney raised an eyebrow, but Lisbon only gave him a glare that would have made him drop dead.

"What we have goes deeper than any friendship.

There were times in our youth when we were joined at the hip and when those times ended we had such a kind of connection we didn't even need to communicate verbally to know what the other one was thinking. It never faded. He and I were – still are closer than you can imagine.

I can't believe I'm doing this right now. One shouldn't have to justify their friendships, they should just be accepted. Even if it is with someone like him, someone who is outlawed by society.

I know what he did wasn't good and I don't claim any different. But he isn't only "the killer" –"

"Pardon me, Miss Lisbon, but why do you only refer to Raymond Haffner as "he"?"

That made her stop in her ranting, and Jane knew he had her there. He himself had pointed that out to Dr. Willowman and Dr. Graser so it would come up in the interrogation. He knew it was cruel, but he was willing to do it as long as it ensured her to go free.

"Why is it of any importance?" Lisbon asked impatiently. "You know who I'm talking about."

"Well, then why have you never said his name in your sessions with Dr. Willowman and Graser?"

The attorney stood as if he was waiting for her to cave, his eyes widened, nostrils flaring a little.

Lisbon hung her head. She knew she couldn't lie any more, her good nature and her promise to her blood-thirsty friend to tell the truth stopped her from it. "I can't."

The man walked around the table, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her in a patronizing manner. "And why so?"

Jane could see her shoulders rise and fall once, very slowly. She was taking a deep breath, trying to hold back her anger.

"Because he made me incapable of saying or writing it to anyone including himself in order to protect his identity."

Jane was tempted to clap at her evasive answer.

"And how exactly did he do that?"

Lisbon gave an audible sigh. "He hypnotized me."

The attorney lifted his chin, and it looked like he barely held back the pointed "A-ha! Gotcha! I win!".

Instead, he asked Lisbon another question.

"So you say. You say he actually _has_ hypnotized you. Planted the suggestion of experiencing pain every time you mention his name. Well, what if that hypnosis reaches even further?"

"It doesn't," Lisbon growled, but the man ignored her.

"What if it all were a suggestion? You know that no trace of Raymond Haffner has been found in your life apart from work. Working colleagues, nothing more. No sign of a friendship, that's what your family and your friends and coworkers said."

"Well," Lisbon said, giving him a barely restrained smile that resembled a tigress showing her teeth before ripping her prey apart, "that's because there weren't _supposed to be_ any traces of him apart from my working life. The connection should never be made in case he got found out. He insisted on it. It was a means of protection."

"Protection for you?"

"No, for the holy mother dolorosa. Of course for _me_."

The unsaid _idiot_ floated across the room and Jane had to suppress a smile.

"And why flush yourself out now, if your friendship was so well protected from the public eye?"

Jane knew as well as Lisbon did, that the man was moving in for another kill to show how improbable her story sounded, no matter how true it was.

"I wanted to do it."

"So you volunteered?"

Lisbon raised her chin, stubborn as a mule. "Yes, I volunteered."

"You know, I don't think so. I think he made you 'volunteer'. I think…everything you are saying here is said out of desperation."

There was this tone of pity again – the man probably thought it resembled a fatherly gesture. Jane could see the more rapid and restrained raise and fall of her chest and the clench of her fists on top of the table, and he so hoped she wouldn't give in and attack the man. She didn't. The man asked her a few more questions to which she answered in clipped short sentences, then sat back down.

The judge sat back in his seat.

"Miss Lisbon, I have read the report Dr. Willowman and Dr. Graser have written.

They seem to think that your word should not be weighed for gold concerning Raymond Haffner. I tend to believe them when they say you live in desperate denial of the fact that what you think in your head was a lifelong friendship really all was a lie.

Your continuing insistence on that and your aggressiveness towards the topic and having to talk about Raymond Haffner himself only cement that for me."

Lisbon didn't say anything anymore, her shoulders were slumped and he knew she must be emotionally drained.

He was proud how all the things fell into place in front of his eyes, even if it hurt to see his once best friend so broken. Lisbon would walk, he knew it.

"So," the judge continued, "I believe you have to work on that illusion, on seeing it for what it is, but you may not remain alone.

Dr. Willowman and Dr. Graser will talk to you again, and they will choose someone to take care of you until the effects of the hypnosis have faded. Until then, you will stay in a mental health resort."

That was exactly the wrong thing to say.

Lisbon had always taken care of herself, and she didn't like being patronized, so she violently rose from her seat, but a policeman stepped forward, gripping her shoulder. She shook it off, and stared at the judge again, her hands clenched into fists.

The judge added: "I do in no way believe you are insane, Miss Lisbon. Just desperate to prove to yourself and others that your memory doesn't betray you and that is the reason you cling to this suggestion so much.

All the charges that have been spoken against you are dropped, Miss Lisbon, and I want to give you a piece of advice: Try to forget Raymond Haffner and move on."

Jane was shocked to see that she was smiling at the judge.

"Thank you. But I don't think I will."

000

"So?" Grace asked, walking next to Jane, "What happens next?"

Jane shrugged. "I don't know. I guess she'll have to stay with someone she knows if not a social worker or some mental advisor of sorts."

"You mean if they let her out of that mental institution."

Grace seemed so bitter the last few weeks. Jane could only come to the conclusion it was because she felt her trust had been broken – once again, after O'Loughlin. And both occasions probably were about equally bad.

Rigsby seemed to cope better, to him this whole ordeal was something that had to be lived through and then everything would go back to the usual. He tried to deal with the investigation on Red John and Lisbon's connection as normal as any, but he couldn't help himself from asking once in a while "Do you really believe it's true what she said to us?" to which they all would nod.

Jane asked himself if Rigsby had doubts about if the lie they were telling the shrinks and the rest of the police wasn't actually the truth.

Jane had to admit to himself that sometimes he wished it was the truth, that Lisbon really was only so deeply hypnotized, but every time he looked her in the eyes he knew it was just wishful thinking and that was all that there would ever be to it.

Cho, on the other hand, was almost feverishly trying to make sure their plan for setting Lisbon free would work as he was the one in charge of the investigation. He had been the one to make the effort and dig around in her past – with van Pelt's help, of course – to see if there were any traces that would connect Lisbon and Haffner to prove her story was the actual true one.

But as she had said in the interrogation, they had done very well to hide their friendship. Neither her brothers, nor former neighbors or anything on her record connected them.

But then Jane thought their friendship wasn't one that entailed loaning each other large sums of money. And if it did, then it certainly wouldn't have been on the records.

He for himself couldn't quite admit to the others how much this got to him. They kept asking him if he was okay – even Cho had done it a few times – and he just smiled at them as usual, nodded and went about the day as normal. Jane was unable to explain to himself or the others why he was doing this.

Grace kept telling him that Lisbon had betrayed them all and him especially, that she didn't deserve the effort. But he just shook his head and told her it was the least he could do for her.

One time, Grace had asked him: "How could it be the least thing you could do for her, for God's sake?"

He'd looked at her, wanting her to see how honest he was being with her. "She's the one who saved me. Hundreds of times."

Then he'd walked away and intended to hide away in his attic to brood away over what he'd just revealed to Grace, but he'd made a beeline for the roof café. He was in desperate need of some sunshine. Something to remind him not all the light had left his life that night she had told him to set his teacup down so he wouldn't shatter it.

And actually, it hadn't, even though Lisbon was reluctant to even talk or look at him. He just was glad she was still there and not dead like all the other disciples they'd caught already.

Jane turned to Grace. "They will let her out. The nice two Doctors only need to figure someone out they can leave her with."

"And you probably don't want it to be a social worker," Cho stated from his other side.

Jane stopped walking. "No, actually I don't want it to be a social worker."

"You really think it's a good idea to take care of her yourself?" Cho asked.

Jane had to admit, he had thought about doing it. But he didn't think she would like that. He uttered his thoughts aloud, and Grace raised an eyebrow.

"Her brothers didn't exactly respond well to hearing her sister was probably in league with a serial killer. You remember how Tommy kept shouting over the phone?"

Jane sighed. "Yes, I do. But then now they will believe their sister is only a little…influenced. I'm sure we could convince them of taking care of her."

"Tommy is struggling anyway to be able to pay his rent, Jane. You can't burden him with this, too. Her other brothers both have got family, I doubt they'd want her there after all this. I think she'd go ranting on about how all we told the shrinks and the judge and all the other people is the actual lie. It would drive them insane."

"There's no way we're doing that to her or her brothers," Cho said, his hands on his hips.

"Then why doesn't one of you go live with her for a while? I guess it won't take forever. They have to clear her for living alone. You just wait, she'll cave and tell them what they want to hear," Jane tried to assure them.

"And what is it they want to hear?" Cho asked.

"That she finally accepts all she has stored away in her head as memories are just lies."

"And until then, it's going to take some time, Jane," Grace said, "You know how stubborn she is."

"I do. Why don't you take her in for a while, Grace?" Jane suggested casually, "It would give you and Lisbon a chance to make things right."

Grace looked away ashamedly and her eyes slowly wandered over to Rigsby.

Jane gave them a radiant smile. "Ah, so you and Rigsby moved in together. Thought so."

Rigsby's head snapped up and he couldn't help looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

"How did you manage to do it so quietly? I've been wondering for the last three weeks."

Rigsby cleared his throat, clearly searching for an answer, but Cho intervened.

"That doesn't matter. You sure as hell know I can't take her in."

"Yes, what would your mother think if you moved in with your boss."

Cho sighed inaudibly. "_Former_ boss. But that doesn't matter. It was your plan. This is your call, _buddy_."

Jane knew Cho was right. And he also knew that Lisbon was going to hate it.


	10. Chapter 10

Hey guys!

I actually wanted to update this sooner, but life got in the way. You know how it is.

Thanks to guest for the review!

I hope you enjoy! Let me know your opinion!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

"Mr. Jane," Dr. Willowman sad, looking stern and serious, "I have thought this through thoroughly. It seems to me that you are the best choice of companion for Miss Lisbon at the moment, seeing how her brothers have reacted to her and how her other friends have no possibility of taking her in. But promise me that you won't let her out of your sight."

Jane, sitting across from her on the other side of her desk, made sure he looked her deep in the eyes. "I won't. Consider me her second shadow."

"I don't want you to take this lightly. Although you have proven worthy your consultation in determining the degree to which Miss Lisbon is under Red John's influence -"

"Which has already lessened. I have spoken to her several times in the meantime, and I can feel the effects are already wearing off, even if it might not be obvious to you."

That was a lie. And a big one, too. If anything, she was even more adamant of avoiding talking about Red John at all.

"Still, I am happy to have had you with me. But I have heard that you have sometimes had your troubles sticking to the rules and being responsible. Promise that you won't let the rules slide this time. It might be fatal."

He made every effort of looking grave.

Jane was not lying to Dr. Willowman, at least not on this. He would make sure Lisbon was near him as often as possible. His gut told him not to let her go so easily, not to let her hate him from afar, but to make her bear his company until they had talked out what had happened. He still had questions about Haffner. And he still had questions about what would become of them – him, her and their friendship.

"I promise," he said.

"Fine. Then let's go and get her."

Dr. Willowman rose out of her chair and Jane accompanied her to the door, holding it open for the psychologist. Together, they left to go and get Lisbon out of the "resort".

000

Lisbon had spent a whole week in the so-called "resort", and Jane had visited Lisbon three times. She had actually received him as a visitor. Her reasoning went somewhere along the lines that he was the only sane person in the building every time he came by.

He swore if Lisbon would have had to spend any more time in there she might actually go nuts. She was already easily riled up – even more than before – and had stopped eating and sleeping altogether.

"The stuff they serve here as "food" should rather be called straw," was her comment when he asked her about it.

He had promised to bring a bear clawthe next time. That was the first time she smiled at him ever since she had nearly attacked him in the interrogation room.

She had obviously noticed, because she made sure the smile disappeared quickly. After all, she was determined to keep their conversations strained and uncomfortable, especially for him. He could not deny she succeeded.

The morning of her eighth day, Jane accompanied Dr. Willowman – who had agreed to continue "treating" Lisbon – into the resort and found Lisbon waiting in the foyer, a small duffel bag at her feet and her jacket slung over her arm.

When she saw him, her eyes widened and then he could see the urge to either grab him, throw him to the ground and beat the hell out of him or grab her bag and make a run for it rise up in her.

"You can't be serious," were her first words that day.

According to Dr. Willowman, she had barely spoken to the personnel in the resort, making her ever so more worried for Lisbon's mental condition.

"Miss Lisbon, Mr. Jane is the best choice for this, believe me," Dr. Willowman began, but Lisbon would have none of it. "He certainly isn't," she snapped.

"I don't understand why, Miss Lisbon. He is an expert on the subject of hypnosis; he is the one who can help you the most. Apart from that, weren't you two friends?"

"Emphasis on "were"," she shot back.

Jane made every effort not to let it show on his face how much that stung.

"Believe me," Dr. Willowman went on, "this is the best course to go now, Teresa."

"Don't you dare "Teresa" me, Dr. Willowman, I can take care of myself," Lisbon growled.

"I have no doubt about that," the lovely Doctor replied, this time laying aside all the sweetness and appearing completely serious, "but I have to be frank here, I don't want you to be alone in the next two months _at least_. No one knows what Red John has planted inside your head, something could happen to you."

"Nothing will happen to me because no damn thing has been planted in my head," Lisbon said, stepping closer to Dr. Willowman.

Jane feared she might hit the woman, but Dr. Willowman finally showed her hard side and did not back down a step. Lisbon was puzzled by that, so she did what Jane had expected of her: she caved so she would have the annoying Doctor off her back.

"Fine. I'll let you have it. Two months. Not a single. Day. Longer."

Dr. Willowman gave her a sweet smile. "We'll see about that when the time arrives."

000

Outside, Jane led Lisbon to his car and he made to open the passenger door of his baby blue Citroen for her, but she turned to him instead.

"You made her do this. I don't care how, but you somehow convinced her you, a known idiot, to be the best choice for monitoring me through this…" – she smirked – "_crisis_."

"In fact, it was her who asked me first," Jane said, reaching around her and opening the car's door.

"I know you sneaked the idea insider her head first. You would have asked her if she hadn't beat you to it."

"Yes, I have. And yes, I would have," he confirmed.

Lisbon leaned back against the door so it fell closed again.

"You know I hate doing this. You know full well that I didn't want my _guide_ or whatever it is called to be _you_, of all people.

I'm just asking myself why you keep torturing both of us. I hate being around you" – at least she hadn't said "I hate _you_" this time – "and you are uncomfortable being around me. So, _why_?"

Jane gave up trying to open the door for her, and shrugged. "I have got no idea. I just guess there are some things we need to sort out."

Lisbon reached up her right hand and rubbed at her eyes. "I'd very much prefer leaving right now and never seeing you again."

Jane ignored her as best as he could. "Get in the car, please, I want to get going. Standing around here won't make it any better and the two months certainly no shorter."

"You can bet on that," Lisbon murmured, sounding slightly irritated, and slipped into the car. Jane wondered why she was doing this. If he'd been her, he would have made a run for it long ago.

Maybe she didn't hate him as much as she claimed all the time. Maybe she wanted to set things right before they parted ways, too, just like him.

He shrugged again, this time at no one in particular but himself and slid into the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition and started the car.

He'd just put it in gear as Lisbon shouted: "Wait!"

He turned to look at her, slightly worried. She sounded slightly panicky.

"Where are you going to take me? As long as I've known you, you didn't live anywhere. Just that stupid motel room, or the attic, or the couch. Or your house in Malibu."

If Jane wasn't mistaken, he could hear a little…not quite fear, but resentment to go any of the listed places.

He grinned at her.

"I have an apartment now," he said, and laughed as her mouth fell open.

At the moment, he felt like things could be going back to normal. The feeling didn't last long, though.

000

Lisbon didn't say a single word as they drove and neither when they went up to his newly rented condo, or when he showed her the guest room.

Wordlessly, she carried her bag into the room, dumped it next to the bed and remained standing stock-still next to it.

Jane waited a few seconds to see how she'd react, but when she only balled her hands into fists, he stepped closer. "Lisbon? Are you okay?"

No matter how much concern his voice held, she whirled around and pointed a finger at him. Her eyes flared up, she was livid as he had seen her before only once.

"Don't you dare think I'll play house with you, Jane. I can't go to work" - she snorted –"but I need to do something other than sit around a whole goddamn day waiting for something to happn.

Don't expect me to stay here, because I need to do something, anything really, or I'll go insane for real, and don't you dare stop me, because then I'll rip your damn head off for good. You have got absolutely no say in what I do or leave be anymore, do you understand me?" This was not 'his angry Lisbon' anymore, this was a different, _dangerous_ Lisbon. He was moving on extremely thin ice.

"Lisbon, I-"

"I want you to stop acting like you care about me right now and let me do my own things. The shrinks won't hear a single word about it, you'll tell them I do some sensible _getting adjusted to life_ or whatever it is they want to hear, or you're a dead man. I'm only here because of you. You have made too many decisions in my life. You have reined it far too long.

You don't own me, do you understand?"

She took a fast step forward, and he backed away, his hands raised as if to keep her at bay.

"I don't make any claims on you," he said.

"Oh how goddamn wrong you are, ruling my life to your likings," she hissed back.

This stubborn beast of a woman, sometimes she could be utterly blind to people trying to help her. How could she not see that was the only thing he was only trying to do - _help_?

"I am trying to help you! You are not supposed to spend the rest of your life in prison for someone who doesn't deserve it!" he shouted, and only received another wave of anger crashing against him.

"How would you know what he deserves and what not, you idiot! You don't know him at all! You have got no idea what is meant for me in life, or how I want it to go! _Y_

_ou _certainly don't know what's good for me, so: Leave. It. Be."

Jane didn't know what to say. Sometimes he really could only think he didn't know her anymore.

He had believed – for almost ten years – that he knew each and every trait of her character, every different mood, every different tone of her voice. It was totally against all he had learned to see her like this.

Jane hung his head, closing his eyes. For the first time in a very long while, he felt a headache pounding against his forehead and suddenly understood how Lisbon must have been feeling pretty much every day since they'd met.

"You're right."

Disbelief and mocking irony replaced the anger on her face when she put her hands on her hips. "Oh? Am I?"

"Yes," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "But rotting away in a cell without a window, or one with bars in front of it, lying on a mattress that pierces your back and makes you ache all over and the grey walls, and the stuffy air, and the terror of the other inmates, that's not for you, Lisbon.

You are tough, and I am aware of that. But it's not something for you, because you are far too good for it."

"Don't treat me like a goddamn saint, Jane. I'm not. The newspapers might have said so once, but I certainly am not. I have done and been through a lot of shit in my life."

"You are definitely not a saint, no," Jane confirmed, then silenced.

He watched Lisbon stand there for a while, squinting her eyes shut.

"I'm going to go downstairs now," Jane said. "I haven't had breakfast yet. I'm going to make some early lunch. If you feel like joining me, you are welcome, but give me a few minutes to digest all of this," he added, then turned and left the room.

A few minutes later, he sat down with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, and looked up when Lisbon slumped into the chair across from him.

"Want some?" he asked, but she shook her head.

"Have you eaten breakfast today?" Again, she shook her head.

"You should eat something," Jane stated.

Lisbon gave him a weary smile. "I'm not hungry, so thanks, but no thanks."

They fell silent, and it wasn't exactly comfortable, but not exactly uncomfortable, either. "That wasn't the last discussion we'll have," she suddenly said, dead serious.

All Jane could do was nod. "No, it wasn't."


	11. Chapter 11

Hello there!

Back I am with a new chapter.

Thank you, Merilyn, for your review :) It gives me confidence that this story might actually work on some level ;)

Let me know what you think and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Contrary to Lisbon, I like wearing dresses, but that doesn't make me the owner of TM. I am not.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

In the evening, Lisbon sat in the armchair in his living room of his newly rented apartment. She had her legs curled up under her and was reading a book, making her look very calm and content. He'd never taken her for much of a reader, but here she was, doing just that.

Jane watched her from the doorway, not making a sound so he wouldn't disturb her. It was nice seeing her not seething with suppressed anger.

One sentence Lisbon had hauled at him earlier in her fit of rage he didn't seem able to get off his mind.

_I want you to stop acting like you care about me right now. _

"I'm not acting, you know," he said, his voice cutting through the silence like a set of sharp knives.

Lisbon startled and nearly dropped her book. "Jane!" she yelled, "You scared the life out of me."

"Apparently, I can't have, otherwise you'd be dead lying at my feet by now."

"You think this is funny, huh," she grumbled, then looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"What did you mean anyway, you're "not acting"?"

"About what you said earlier, that you wanted me to stop acting like I cared about you. I'm not acting. I do care about you."

Lisbon raised an eyebrow at this, but looked away after a second. "You really do, hm. Even after all this…stuff that happened?"

Jane leaned against the wood of the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. "A lot of things have happened in the time we have been working together, Lisbon."

"Yes, but never something like _this_. I'm just wondering why you didn't simply _stop _caring the second you found out about me and Red John."

"You don't just stop caring about people you've been friends with for years. What has become of you insisting that our friendship was real?"

That made her smile, and Jane couldn't help himself but see a faint glimmer of cruelty in her eyes. "It was. It ended though, the moment you asked me to trait my friend in that interrogation room."

"And now you were traited by him."

"As you have already very aptly pointed out, he must have done it to protect me."

Jane frowned. He had the feeling she was taking this too lightly. Shoving aside the things that were troubling her. "I thought you didn't want to be protected."

"I didn't and still don't. But it's done now, isn't it? No sense in dwelling on it."

He cocked his head, looking at her thoughtfully. "I don't buy that you take it so easily." Lisbon gulped, and looked away, caught in the act.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" she asked through gritted teeth. "Yell at the top of my lungs? Cry my eyes out?"

Jane was well aware that he was provoking her again. "Neither. But I want you to tell me the truth. All of it."

She surprised him with jumping up from her seat and walking speedily up to his position in the doorframe. He straightened up, waiting for the punch in the nose.

Instead, she growled: "Oh, what do you know about the truth?"

"A great deal, since I'm a trained liar," Jane retorted.

Maybe this conversation wasn't going as expected, but it was definitely better than Lisbon's silence on the topic. After all, he thought he deserved some closure. Hearing it from the person that had been closest to Red John – he had no doubts about that – only served him right. He wasn't trying to use Lisbon for his own satisfaction since he hadn't gotten to kill the man who had slaughtered his family. That was what he told himself. Still, he wasn't so sure of his own motives. He was a selfish bastard after all. They both knew that very well.

He supposed she hadn't expected anything else than him asking her questions about Red John, had probably expected them sooner. And probably inside an interrogation room, not in his apartment.

Lisbon gained his attention again with a snort. "Oh, he finally admits he's a lying asshole!" she said in fake glee, then narrowed her eyes, jabbing a finger at him. "You know what, Mr. Jane?"

That was when he noticed that, ever since he'd come to visit her at the "resort", she'd gone back to calling him just "Jane". Hearing the formal address once again practically sent daggers through his heart.

"You seem to have forgotten: So am I. Red John trained me, remember?"

Letting all the air escape his lungs, he gave her a weak smile, barely tilting the corners of his mouth upwards.

"That was merely withholding information, keeping it back. He trained you not to spill anything about him when interrogated. That's not lying. It's not conjuring up false statements."

Lisbon glowered, biting her lower lip to keep herself from shouting or doing something worse. "Fine. If you are so insistent, I'll give up. What _truths_" – she put a strange stress on the word, as if it was trying to bite her – "do you want to hear?"

With wide eyes, Jane stilled, his hands at his sides, staring at Lisbon.

"What?" she asked after a few seconds, raising her chin as if sulking. "It doesn't matter who hears anything anymore. Red John is locked away and going to die."

She paused at that, her eyes wandering from his face around the room, searching for a point she could focus on. Jane suspected that was the moment the fact finally hit home.

Raymond Haffner, Lisbon's friend, was going to die. _He_ had obviously made his peace with that fact, but it didn't look like_ she_ had.

Lisbon briefly closed her eyes and pulled herself together again. "It doesn't matter anymore," she repeated softly.

With a jerk, Jane jumped back into action. It hurt him to see Lisbon sad. "Hey," he said, raising his hand to touch her shoulder.

She stepped out of reach immediately. "Please," she said, "not right now."

Inhaling sharply, she reached up to rub the spot between her eyebrows, then slowly walked back to the armchair she'd been sitting in. Jane followed, having a seat on the sofa, watching her again.

Lisbon had her fingers entwined on her knees, which she had pulled up to her chest. She almost looked like a teenage girl with a broken heart – a broken heart she surely had.

Jane felt sad she wouldn't let him comfort him. Then again, he could understand she wouldn't want one of the men who had brought her into this situation comfort her. He wouldn't have wanted that in her place, either.

"Jane?" Lisbon asked quietly, and he looked up at her. She sighed. "I think I _need_ to talk about it sooner or later. I'd rather it be you than those shrinks."

He felt a somber mood lay itself over the two of them like a veil.

"All right," he said, suddenly not so sure he was ready to hear about any of this. "Let me think of something."

Suddenly, he didn't feel capable of looking at her again. Ever. Not because he hated her for what she'd done – he felt more like sad about that – but because he couldn't work up the courage to ask her anything, really.

He was aware she was expectantly waiting for a question, but she surprised him by asking, in a soft voice: "Can't do it, huh?"

The choice of words itself may not have been the nicest, but the way she said it was actually kind.

He felt silly, shook his head with a smile that was barely there. "I guess."

"Fine. I'll go to bed then," she said, and he heard fabric rustle when she rose from her seat and made her way down the hall.

"Oh, and, Jane?" she asked.

Jane turned his head to signal he had heard her, but still didn't look at her straight on. He saw her moving in the corner of his eye, though.

"You'll manage. Hearing about any of this. It isn't all about killing people. But don't worry. I don't have anywhere to go for at least two months, so I won't run away. You can wake me up whenever there comes something to your mind."

Then she turned and retreated into her bedroom.

Jane knew that if she had really wanted, she could have run away fairly easily. But she had just assured him she wouldn't. What was he to make of this?

He sighed. She had refused to eat anything for lunch and had only picked at her dinner. Lisbon had lost too much weight in his opinion; this wasn't doing her any good. Of course he was in no position to force her to eat something, but he was worrying about her.

Maybe it would help if they finally sorted their issues out. Not that he knew what their issues were exactly, all he could do was speculate – probably his seeking for answers, and he couldn't know about her.

Maybe her knowing that he was moving on – or at least going to – would help. That was what she had always told him she wanted for him. He fully believed her words to be true, especially now. She wouldn't want him dwelling on this.

Then he sighed again, thinking about what she'd said before going to bed.

She was still not sleeping; for what reason he didn't know. Maybe out of protest, or because the issues he didn't know about that were boggling her mind. Maybe out of worry for her friend or herself.

He didn't really want to explore that further, but it probably would come up in one of their inevitable – they'd agreed on that – _discussions_ coming up.

Sleeping was not really an option for Jane, but he knew when he had to give in. It was the first time in a while he felt not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally drained. This was one of the few chances he'd get to catch some sleep, as he was well aware that what Lisbon was going to tell him sooner or later would involve a lot of brooding for him.

So he got up and went to change and go to bed, too.

* * *

The next morning Jane found Lisbon sitting on the couch, her knees drawn up to her chest, and reading again.

"Morning," she said without looking up.

"Good morning," Jane responded after a second of hesitation.

The woman seemed so damn light-hearted when she shouldn't be. So he told her that.

"If you want a breakdown, you can have one," she said, setting her book aside.

She took in a breath, then turned to look at him. He very nearly took a step back at the hurt mixing with the anger in her eyes, but shock rooted him to the spot.

Lisbon's voice actually quivered a little, when she began to speak.

"You are not the only one who has suffered in his life, Jane. Sure, my family wasn't killed by a serial killer who also happens to be my supposedly best friend's best friend. But the day my mother died or the days I found my father hanging from the ceiling in the garage…they destroyed me and at the same time made me so strong, because I had to be.

_He _knew about what had happened to me – saw me live through it, actually – and he always was there, and he continued to be there when I went to high school and to police academy, although if it was more in the background. He was _always _there. He was the first person besides my mother whom I could count on. And now…a few months ago, I was my usual confident self, until he tells me what he wants to do…"

She shook her head and let a humorless bark escape her lips.

"Would you believe it when your best friend told you he wanted to hand himself over to the police? Sure with some diversions, but…that was the first time I ever had any doubts about my decisions. I doubted if I could let him do it. But I stood with him. I stood strong. And then the two of you generated that goddamn plan for "rescuing" me from prison. You reduced me from a confident member of law enforcement to the status of a lunatic. That is all the public sees."

Jane wanted to interfere, tell her the public would probably even sympathize with her, but she beat him to it.

"Don't tell me the press won't make me seem like I have to be pitied, but I'll be treated like a deranged, mentally confused child. That's not who I am, and you know it, and it is all your fault. You are the reason I am in this situation now, without a job and without any reputation. I would have gone to prison with my head held high. Have you ever thought about how I would feel about this? That it would not make everything better if I walked away from a sentence?"

Jane sighed. "This was all about you. Your friend Red John had thought about it a lot, obviously." It cost Jane a great deal of strength not to show his repulsion. "And he thought a lot about your feelings."

Lisbon turned her head away from him and her hair obscured her face so he couldn't see the expression on it. "So? Has he? And in the end, it seems, he didn't really care."

"I think he cared a lot," Jane corrected.

"Has he told you so?" Lisbon asked aggressively.

"Actually, no. But it astounded me to see the concern for you in his eyes."

That made her pause for a second.

"I guess I do believe you," she then said – Jane knew it was because he had proven his observational skills innumerable times over the years.

"I always would have thought serial killers are beings incapable of such feelings," Jane added in a light tone, trying to brighten up the mood, although what he was saying wouldn't normally considered the best choice of topic for creating a lighter atmosphere. "Seems I am wrong. I probably should get away from succumbing to clichéd opinions."

Lisbon actually snorted. "You'd wonder how capable he is of human emotions, really." Then she looked at him again with mock suspicion, saying: "I never would have believed you of all people would believe in clichés."

Almost apologetically, Jane shrugged, marveling at how eagerly Lisbon seemed to jump at the chance of a less serious theme, "What can I say? _I'm only human_ is so cliché…" That made her smile. "I think _I'm just Jane_ would do," she said.

Jane grinned, then turned to the kitchen. "Do you want something for breakfast?"

He noticed her hesitate. "No, thank you," she said after some consideration.

Jane sighed, turned back to her and gave her a long look. "How long has it been since you have eaten?" he asked sternly.

She cocked her head, seemingly trying to remember. "Yesterday, at dinner," she replied. "That doesn't count, you barely had a bite," Jane said, putting his hands on his hips.

Lisbon just shrugged. "Okay. Then, the day before yesterday, at dinner, too."

"What did you have?"

"Is this an interrogation now?"

Sighing again, Jane closed his eyes for a second. "No. But I am worrying about you" – Lisbon looked positively shocked at that – "and you have lost quite a bit of weight over the last few months. It started in prison and got worse in that resort they put you in. Have you had a look at yourself in a mirror lately? You look short from starved."

That was a little exaggerated, but only a few more pounds and it would be the truth. Lisbon huffed in exasperation.

"Well, if you're that concerned, could you please make me some toast?" She looked at him, letting him see her mild annoyance, then resumed reading.

"Sure," he said, slowly, walking into the kitchen, thinking if he should ask her about her very quickly and often changing moods or if he valued his limbs too much.

* * *

Back at the CBI headquarters, Cho's, Rigsby's and Van Pelt's eyes were immediately set on him as soon as he walked into the bullpen. Cho was the first one who asked.

"How's Boss?"

It caught him a look from van Pelt. He just stared back, deadpan as always.

"Okay," Jane answered, but that didn't do it for his friends – which they still were, although van Pelt was showing her objections all too clearly.

Cho simply raised an eyebrow and Jane sighed, plopping onto his couch.

"So far, she hasn't broken down or anything" – her tirade that morning didn't count, it was far too reined in on the emotional side – "but it sure is not going to be easy to live with her."

That he didn't know where this all was going to lead – "who would kill whom first" – needn't be said. They all knew it.

* * *

I finally figured out to draw these cool lines between paragraphs...yay :D


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Hey there!

I'm back with a lot of thankfulness! There have been some very, very encouraging reviews, thank you so much for that! Also, there have been new favs added! This is really encouraging me!

Especially to Soonseeahray and Guest, whom I cannot thank directly.

To be frank, I'm not sure about this chapter. Let me know what you think, and, nevertheless, enjoy!

* * *

Jane returned home earlier than usual, Cho had allowed him to go.

The Asian was team leader now, and it suited him, but they all knew he missed Lisbon in his very own weird, Cho-esque way.

Slightly nervous, he opened the door of his apartment, called her name, but there was no reply. Hesitatingly, he pulled his jacket off his shoulders and put it over the back of the couch, then walked down the hall and knocked on her door. He listened intently in the ensuing silence, then opened her door a crack. Her bed was neatly made and she was nowhere to be seen.

That was when he heard the front door of his apartment open again – he had given Lisbon a key the day before – and he wandered back down the hall into the living room, just in time to see her take off her jacket.

"Hey," he said. She looked up.

"Oh, hi," she said.

With narrowed eyes he noticed that her skin was even paler than usual and she had dark rings under her eyes. If he had ever seen an exhausted woman, it was Lisbon, right now.

"Where have you been?" he asked, trying to sound casual. Apparently, it didn't work.

"Why do you want to know? Is it any of your concern?" she asked, suddenly angry again. She didn't let him answer, though. "Oh, I think I have told you what I'm doing is none of your business, haven't I? Just yesterday? Do you even remember?"

"Of course I do."

"Then why are you asking?" she growled, "Do you want to follow me around everywhere I go?"

Back was her childlike stubbornness.

"No. But I was told to keep track on you. Doctor's orders."

It seemed to him that he couldn't get anything he said right today.

"You know it's not for real, or have you actually started to believe in that bullshit you told the shrinks?"

Jane shook his head, trying to set things right, trying to tell her it had only been a joke – or a bad attempt at something like. "No, of course not-"

She cut him off again. "Fine, then that's settled. Don't bother me with that again. I'm in my room."

So she went off, leaving him behind in the living room once again.

* * *

In the evening, he found her a little more sociable, sitting on the couch again, and reading.

"How about some dinner?" he made his careful approach.

She sighed quietly, but got up and left her book behind on the coffee table. Sitting down across from him, she surprised him by actually eating, although she didn't exactly look happy. More – seriously strained by something.

When they were finished, he put the plates away and offered to make her a cup of coffee. Lisbon declined and it made him even more worried.

However, he fixed himself a cup of tea, trying to make it appear like everything was normal. She had stayed in her place, but now had her knees drawn up to her chest and rested her chin on them. To Jane, she strangely resembled a hurt animal which was now desperately trying to tend to the wounds afflicted to it, but not getting anywhere with it.

He nearly flinched when she spoke up.

"I went to see Dr. Willowman," she said.

"Huh?" Jane said, a little surprised.

"About earlier, you asked me where I'd been. I was at Dr. Willowman's. She told me to come today. Wants to "talk" to me some more," Lisbon added.

"I think she's going to be very patient with you, although she told me she was getting a little annoyed at your adamant claiming everything you are telling her and Dr. Graser was true." "Because it is." She smiled a little mischievously.

Jane sighed. "You know that if you want to be cleared for anything – take, living alone, for example – you'll have to give in eventually."

"I know. And I will, just in time for the two months mark. At the moment, though, it's too much fun to see her try to talk some sense into me."

"I had never taken you for a sadist, Lisbon."

Her smile fell. "I'm not."

Jane took a sip of his tea. "I didn't mean it, then."

He watched incredulously as the corners of her mouth twitched upwards again.

Suddenly, he blurted out what had been bothering him for some time now: "You seem quite moody these last days."

Lisbon raised her eyebrows. "Moody?"

Jane exhaled slowly, then shrugged almost apologetically. "Your moods seem to change very rapidly and drastically lately. I'm just wondering why."

With her head cocked to one side, she looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes before relaxing her face. "I've got no idea why. I think I have noticed, too, at least a little."

Well, there was an understatement, Jane thought.

Lisbon just continued. "Maybe it's the lack of sleep."

"Maybe you should eat more," Jane added, and Lisbon sighed, rolling her eyes.

"I have just eaten, didn't you see it? Have you got no eyes in your stubborn head?"

"Yes, I have."

They lapsed into silence for a moment, until Jane asked: "Why is it you can't sleep?"

"It's not that I can't. It's that I don't," she replied, raising her shoulders as if to apologize.

He just looked at her, waiting for further explanation. So she explained.

"Back in the past, every time when something bad happened – so basically when my mother and my father died – I didn't sleep much the following months. Of course, I'd slip in some hours here and there, but I would just stay up at night as long as possible, doing anything I could get my hands on, just so I wouldn't have to go to bed. But…I don't know why…actually, yes, I do know why."

She stared at his teacup for a while as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world to her, her eyebrows drawn together, obviously thinking very hard.

"I didn't want to need to go to bed, lie down and fall asleep, because then I'd see what I imagined was the car crash my mother died in. Or I'd see my father hanging from the ceiling again, only that he was still alive when I found him and he was struggling for air, like a fish out of water."

So nightmares it was. Simple as that.

Jane wanted to say something soothing, like that all the bad dreams would lessen, and that he'd be there for her to talk – because he would -, but he was sure she already knew that. She didn't need his assurances. And she wouldn't have taken him up on his offer, anyway.

* * *

The next day, he took her out for grocery shopping, for he was running out of things and he wanted her to feel somehow like it wasn't at all him-against-her and her-against-him. He wanted her to feel integrated.

They were just walking up the stairs back to his apartment, carrying a bag each, when a woman who lived a few doors away walked past them. She quickly smiled at Jane – the woman had some serious issues in her marriage but was too proud to acknowledge she had any problems, she rather covered it all up with an overly happy behavior – and just threw a glance over her shoulder, then walked a few more steps before turning around to them.

"Oh! Aren't you the woman who was on the news? Agent…Lisbon or something? I read about you in the papers!" Jane's neighbor shrieked, an overly happy smile – obviously fake, but curious and pitying – spreading over her face.

"Yeah," Lisbon said, barely looking at the annoying woman pestering her, and continued walking.

They only had a few more steps to go and Jane really hoped the woman, Mrs. Hofman, would back down. She didn't.

"It's awful what happened to you. You really are a poor thing!"

That comment earned both Mrs. Hofman and Jane a dark look – saying "I knew this would happen" - that could have killed them twenty times over. It was the exactly wrong thing to say, yet Lisbon surprised him by keeping her anger back to herself.

"I'm fine," she said instead to Mrs. Hofman and stopped in front of Jane's door, waiting for him to open it.

"Oh, do you live here now?" Mrs. Hofman asked, "I heard something like you were being taken care of or something, because of what _he_ did to you."

Jane saw Lisbon's sharp intake of breath, so he cut in before she could respond in any way. "It's just for a while, until all the dust has settled," he said, and Mrs. Hofman's eyes quickly flickered to him, before slitting back to Lisbon, who was now looking similar to a volcano about to explode into clouds of fire and burning ashes.

Then, Mrs. Hofman made the fatal mistake.

"If you ever need someone to talk, I'd be happy to listen, you know. What Red John did to you –"

In one fluent movement and with an animalistic cry, Lisbon had dropped her bag of groceries to the floor, vegetables and apples rolling over the floor, and Mrs. Hofman found herself backed up against the wall of the hall.

"Firstly, I don't know you and you don't know me. I don't need anyone to talk to, and don't you dare act like you care, you only want something to gossip about, I know that, and you know that, too," Lisbon spat, livid, her eyes wide and burning with anger, "Secondly, he was my friend, even if no one even bothers to listen to me. Thirdly, his name was Raymond Haffner!"

By that time, Jane had dropped his own paper bag and pulled Lisbon away from the terrified woman, who stumbled away from Lisbon like she was a poisonous snake.

Seething and with grinding teeth, Lisbon wrenched herself from Jane's grip, picked up what she had dropped to the floor and vanished into the apartment. Jane bent down to pick up his own bag and heard the quick pace at which Mrs. Hofman fled from what had just happened. He had a feeling she was regretting even looking at Lisbon over her shoulder.

When he stepped into the apartment, he found Lisbon on the floor, sitting up against the back of the couch, and breathing in and out heavily, her eyes shut.

"Lisbon?" he asked, very carefully, setting down his bag next to the kitchen's entrance, "Is everything alright?"

She shook her head once, then winced, as if in pain.

"Hey," he said, his stomach turning into a block of icy panic, "what is it?"

He kneeled next to her, but didn't dare to touch her.

"I shouldn't have done this," she moaned, wrapping her arms around herself as if trying to hold herself together.

Jane frowned, not understanding what she was talking about, but then it hit him – she had just said Haffner's name, which she was meant to be incapable of. Now she was suffering from the consequences. It was possible to inflict physical pain through hypnosis, and Jane himself knew it was far from pleasant.

"I did this without thinking," she said through gritted teeth, the speed of her breathing increasing.

"It's okay," Jane said, now definitely panicking.

He didn't know what Haffner had done to her, he hadn't even thought of asking the man when he'd had the chance. He really should have.

"No," Lisbon moaned again, and Jane saw little drops of sweat forming on her forehead.

He needed to do something, so he decided it probably was best if he just took her to bed, see what would happen.

Haffner had loved Lisbon like a sister; he wouldn't have done anything bad to her. The man wouldn't have risked his friends life in exchange for his own, Jane knew that much.

So Jane drew Lisbon up to her feet, but then he felt her stiffen.

"Oh God," she panted, "I think I'm going to be sick."

And before Jane even knew it, she was gone, hurrying down the hall and bursting into the bathroom. He heard her wretching, frozen to his spot.

Only the noise of a toilet being flushed brought him back to life and he went up to the open bathroom door. Lisbon was splashing cold water into her face and turned her head at him when he stopped short in the doorway.

She looked very bad. Frail, thin, ill.

"Lisbon?" he asked, unsure if she even really saw him because she seemed to stare right through his chest.

With a deep and bitter sigh she turned to look at herself in the mirror.

"You should go to bed, lie down a little," Jane said, still watching her.

Slowly, she straightened up, laying the towel she'd had in her hands aside and turned to walk out. With a quiet "oh" Jane saw that she was shaking, even though her hands were clenched into fists now and her fingers couldn't trait her.

"Come on," he said, taking her right elbow with his left hand and gently guiding her to her room.

In the doorway, she turned and pushed his hand away, although not unfriendly.

"You can leave me alone now," she said, but Jane looked at her questioningly.

"Are you sure?"

She gave him a shaky smile, a very bad attempt it was indeed. "Yes. Please."

Maybe she wasn't feeling well, but Jane understood she wanted – needed, really – to be alone right now.

"Okay," he said softly, "but please tell me when you need something."

She nodded weakly, letting her jacket slide off her shoulders. She hadn't managed to take it off.

"I will."

Jane was not sure whether he should believe her or not, but he turned and closed the door behind him quietly. Outside, he leaned against the wall for a second. He really was at a loss as to how to deal with this.

* * *

A/N: Now, I have a question for you: What are the things you have always wanted to know about Red John (and Lisbon)? The story is already written out, but I am always willing to extend it. Leave me a review and if there are things I haven't already dealt with in the original text, I will happily explore your suggestions!


	13. Chapter 13

Hey there,

I'm delivering a new chapter here!

I really, really have to thank everyone who reviewed Chapter 12. Your words were very encouraging, especially yours, Merilyn. You pretty much praised me there! It made my day! I am so grateful for that!

I hope you like this just as much and once we are past this chapter, we'll finally get to the point of this whole fic :)

Let me know what you think!

* * *

In the evening at about eight, when Lisbon still hadn't shown a single sign of life, he decided to go and ask her how she was. He quietly went up to her door and knocked, but there was no answer.

So he opened it a crack and found her lying on her back, one hand next to her head, the other on her stomach. Her hair was fanned out over the pillow and she had her head turned towards the window, her eyes were closed.

With a slight flurry of panic he noticed her breathing was shallow and her forehead was covered in small droplets of sweat. She had her legs tangled up in the blanket, obviously her sleep hadn't been too peaceful and she must have tossed and turned all the time.

Lisbon – who was dressed in her sleepwear, obviously – didn't stir when he walked up to her bedside, careful not to rouse her. He observed her closely, noticing that her pulse was racing against the skin of her throat.

That was when he decided to wake her, gently shaking her shoulder.

"Lisbon?" he whispered, and she turned her head towards the noise, moaning quietly. "Lisbon," he repeated, reaching up to feel her forehead with the back of his hand.

He flinched back at the heat he found there and he found himself unable to hold back the breathy "Oh God" that escaped his lips. She was burning up!

Hurrying out of the room and into the bathroom, he formed a plan in his head. He would first put a cold washcloth on her forehead, then call a doctor whom he knew occasionally agreed to house visits - for a suitable payment, of course. Jane was not an expert on fevers, he wasn't sure if this one was life threatening, but he knew she was in no condition to be transported to a hospital.

As quickly as he could, he acted out his plan. When he carefully placed the washcloth damped with ice-cold water on her forehead, Lisbon made a sound not unlike a wince, but still didn't open her eyes. The doctor he called assured him he would be there in twenty minutes. Impatiently, Jane shifted on the chair he had dragged to Lisbon's bedside – he felt a little ridiculous sitting there, but he swore to himself he wouldn't move from there if it needn't be – and once again felt for her pulse that was rapidly thumping against her wrist.

Apparently feeling his touch this time, her eyes fluttered open. They were glassy and she didn't seem able to focus on him, but he sought them out, trying to talk to her.

"Lisbon, can you hear me? How are you feeling?"

Her lips parted, but all that came out was a quiet sigh. She murmured something he couldn't quite make out.

"What? What did you say, Lisbon? Can you repeat it to me?"

Of course she didn't, turning her head towards the darkening windows again. Her eyes flickered from one point to the next like the wings of a hummingbird.

"It's dark," she croaked, her voice hoarse as if she hadn't spoken for days.

Jane slid from his chair and sat down on the bed next to her, feeling her pulse once again. It seemed to become faster by the minute.

"Hey, Lisbon, look at me," he tried again.

This time, she appeared to actually understand and looked him straight in the eyes.

Jane held up four fingers. "How many fingers am I showing you?" he asked.

Her eyes narrowed for a second, then she scrunched them shut, shaking her head. "I…can't…," she whispered, opening her eyes again. The jade green was subdued in the glow it normally held.

That was when the doorbell rang.

"I'll be right back," Jane whispered, releasing her hand and jumping up to open the door.

He ushered the doctor inside, quickly steering him to the room of his sick friend.

"Have you taken her temperature?" the doctor asked, but Jane shook his head.

"I figured I'd wait for you. All I needed to know was that it's high."

The doctor eyed him for a moment, then turned to Lisbon, whose eyes were closed again. "Does she understand when you talk to her?"

"Barely."

"What's her name?"

"Teresa Lisbon."

The doctor's head perked up. "The one who was mentioned in the papers?"

Jane sighed. He genuinely hoped Lisbon didn't hear this. "Yes, the one."

To his relief, the doctor didn't ask any further questions but set down his bag on the chair Jane had been sitting on before and took out a stethoscope. When the cold metal touched Lisbon's skin, she flinched, but didn't make a sound. The man took her temperature and pulse, too, then turned to Jane.

"How long has she been having the fever?" he asked, his voice sounding grave.

Jane frowned, worried. "Not longer than a few hours."

"Has she shown signs of it before?"

That made Jane think. "Not really, actually. She looked exhausted, though, didn't eat and sleep very well the last few weeks."

After a little consideration, he added: "And this afternoon, she got really angry with a neighbor. She yelled at the woman, even shoved her up against the wall. Just a minute later, I found her in the living room, looking like she was in pain…when I wanted to help her to lie down, she got nauseous and…you know, threw up."

"Hm," the doctor made, then turned back to Lisbon, pulling her eyelids up. "Her pupils are dilated, the reflexes at the contact with light are delayed."

The man straightened back up. "She's got 105 degrees at the moment. If the fever doesn't break soon, it might be dangerous."

Jane stiffened. "What can I do?"

"I'll leave something here for you. It's something to disperse in water. You should try and make her drink something so she doesn't dehydrate. All you can do is wait, but if it isn't better by tomorrow morning, call me again. Every minute might count by then."

Jane gulped, but had the mind to nod and show the doctor out after the last things were settled. Then he returned to Lisbon with a glass of water, dispersed the stuff the doctor had given him – he didn't care what it was, as long as it helped – and propped Lisbon up against his chest. He spoke to her gently while she reacted by gulping down the water. She sighed contentedly when the glass was empty and Jane let her sink back into the pillows. He renewed the washcloth, exchanging it with a fresh and cool one.

Then he took his seat in the chair and prepared himself to stay awake all night to repeat the process and take her temperature every hour.

He thought a lot about her, why she was lying there now, covered in a thin glistening layer of sweat on her delicate skin.

Sometime around eleven, he turned out the light and clicked on the bedside lamp. Every once in a while, Lisbon would move a little, jerking her head from one side to the other, her lips moving, but not forming a word. Jane guessed she was dreaming – or, worse, hallucinating. Sometimes she would open her eyes, staring into empty air as if she was seeing someone. He hoped it wasn't Haffner. It probably was.

* * *

Lisbon's temperature didn't go down until early in the morning, only barely keeping Jane from calling the doctor again. When he took her temperature again an hour later, her lids fluttered open and she watched as he regarded the result, pleased.

"Jane?" she whispered.

It made him look up. It was the first time she had really spoken since the evening before. "Hey there," he said, crouching down at her side, taking her hand and measuring her pulse. "How are you?"

Lisbon exhaled slowly. "Don't know. Headachy. It's still so hot," she said, her voice hoarse.

"Do you want some water?"

She took some time until she answered. Jane guessed her thoughts were still not going as straight as she would have wanted and it was difficult for her to form sensible sentences. "Yes, please."

"Fine, I'll be right back," Jane assured her, then rose to leave.

When he reached the door and was about to open it, Lisbon's weak voice drifted to his ears once more.

"Jane?"

He turned around.

"Why are you doing this?"

It made him pause. Apparently she could think much more clearly than he'd thought.

He observed her for a few seconds, saw the sincere curiosity, and then shrugged. With that he left the room, not daring to look back, for he was sure she was boring her eyes into his back. Outside, he took a second to ponder her question for himself. It was a reasonable question – to which he didn't know the answer.

Frowning, he asked himself what his motive for doing this was.

Why had he taken up the responsibility of taking care of her? Why hadn't he just left her at the "resort" in the first place?

As far as he was concerned, he had every reason to hate her. Yet he didn't.

Of course, he wanted answers. He wanted to know about Red John, and, strangely enough, her relationship with him. What made a person drawn to someone who would become a serial killer? Why hadn't she just turned away from him the second she'd found out what he'd done?

But Jane had the eerie feeling there was more to it. More than he would let himself admit. He wasn't – couldn't be – sure as to why. To be frank, he was scared of what that force that seemed to constantly draw him to her might be.

Jane couldn't help but feel undeniable anger when he thought of what she had kept from him all those years. It didn't make the things they'd been through together meaningless as he had more than once wished ever since she had revealed her secret. It would've made it so much easier to really hate her.

But then he thought of how she had helped him keep it together. Not only during Red John cases but always. Cases concerning Red John was where it got tricky: of course he hadn't known she was keeping things from him, but she had, and it was inexplicable to him how she could have, on the one hand, comforted her one friend, while on the other hand, she had covered for her other, serial killer friend –. Nevertheless, she had been there for him whenever he had needed her.

Jane asked himself how she had fit Haffner in her cramped schedule – dealing with him, dealing with paperwork mostly caused by him and having a friendship with a serial killer. He was intrigued at how that worked.

A few minutes after he had left the guest room, he returned with a cool glass of water and some Tylenol, but when he opened the door again, Lisbon was soundly asleep again. Her lips were slightly parted and Jane could hear her steady breath. She seemed okay.

On a whim, he grabbed pen and paper, scribbled down a note saying he'd be back soon and then set off to the CBI office. At the moment, he didn't feel like he could stay in that apartment even a second longer.

* * *

Cho, Rigsby and van Pelt had already arrived when he walked into the bullpen. Instead of a "Good morning" the first thing he heard was far less optimistic.

"God, Jane, you look horrible," van Pelt said, her eyes wide.

Jane stopped walking to shoot her a glare. It was not like him to do that, but this time he just felt compelled to.

"Well, thank you, it's nice seeing you, too," he retorted, then let himself fall onto his couch very ungracefully.

He felt Cho's eyes on him. "What is it, Cho?"

"Had some serious disturbing talk with Lisbon?" Cho asked, as always getting straight to the point.

"No, not quite."

Cho raised his eyebrows. "Then some serious non-talking?"

That was the second glare Jane shot across a room in not even a minute. When he didn't respond, he noticed he had to make amends quickly so that Rigsby and van Pelt, who were looking at him with their eyebrows raised and an unbelieving expression on their faces, wouldn't get the wrong ideas.

"Of course not," he said with vigor, "is that what you would expect me to do after all this?"

Cho shrugged. "Don't know. Had to make sure, you've always been attracted to criminals. So, what is it, then?"

"Lisbon's got a bad fever since yesterday. It's better now, though," he said, then recounted what had happened with the more or less poor Mrs. Hofman and what had followed.

"I'm here because I felt like I couldn't stay there for a second longer this morning," he concluded.

Van Pelt frowned. "Why?"

He hesitated. "I don't know," he said slowly, "but I need something to work on. Give me something to do for a few hours and then I'll head back."

Rigsby and van Pelt both observed him with obvious concern. Jane knew they thought what he was doing – to himself – wasn't good, but he didn't care.

He had things to figure out; things he was getting more and more afraid of the longer he thought about all the possible answers and outcomes of the conversations to come between him and Lisbon.

"Okay," van Pelt said, then handed him a manila file.

Jane opened it and dug into its contents – a summary on the case the team had caught the previous afternoon, when he and Lisbon had been out shopping for groceries.

He managed to distract himself quite successfully, but after a while he had the feeling it was time to return to his apartment – he wasn't sure if he could call it a home with what was waiting there for him.

* * *

I have got no idea if doctors in America do house visits. Where I live, they occasionally do, if asked nicely and if the patient's condition is "bad enough".

Apart from that, I have a song recommendation. Any of you know Michael Bublé? And his song "Call Me Irresponsible"? I love that song, and it reminds me of Jane. Listen to it and you'll know why. (Actually, the title already as much as screams it at you...)


	14. Chapter 14

Hello lovely readers!

I am back yet again with another chapter!

You are so great and supportive people around here, really.

**Leafs**: Yes, why is Jane helping a woman he is supposed to hate? That's the big question, isn't it? And I think the answer will become clear to you by reading between the lines :)

**Clare:** Your English isn't bad, and it isn't my mother tongue, either, so we're quite even, I think :) Whether Lisbon will let Jane be there for her...hm. I think you will see that in later chapters. And there's still loads to come. If I keep going at this rate, there'll be some more. I think we're past the half of the story, but not quite up to two thirds.

**Guest: **Thank you so much, really :)

Also, **Soonseeahray** has already asked me not to kill Lisbon. I can tell you for sure, that's not gonna happen :) But a Chance of redemption? We'll have to see about that ;)

Well then, enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think. Also, if there come up things you'd like to know about RJ and Lisbon or just Lisbon, I'd be happy to take up any suggestions and see where I can fit them in the Story to see what I can make of them.

Lots of gratefulness

TheReflection

* * *

Lisbon was sleeping again when he returned. He knew she must have been awake while he'd been away because the glass of water was empty and the Tylenol was gone. Beneath his hastily scribbled notes she had written "Thanks".

It made him smile. And he was mildly shocked at that.

As silently as possible, he retreated from the room and flopped onto the couch, closing his eyes.

He felt tired. Although that was nothing new to him it had never been like this – utter exhaustion coming from trying to solve a problem that proved a hard nut to crack. Just like the Red John case had been.

But, Jane thought, the Red John case wasn't really over yet.

Haffner was locked away, yes, but another relevant part of it was currently sleeping in the guest room of his newly rented apartment.

It had been on a whim when Jane had decided to look for something to live in more permanently than the attic or the bullpen at the CBI. His motel room had become a place he despised and only went to pick up clean clothes and take a shower. It seemed for no apparent reason, but he knew better: This room was connected to his hunt, too.

He had rented it when he'd come to Sacramento almost ten years ago because he thought he wouldn't need anything more permanent. In his opinion, it was going to be for a few weeks up to a few months, at maximum. And by the end of that estimated time, he was sure he wouldn't have use for an apartment anymore, for he would live in a single room with nothing for furniture apart from a bed and iron bars instead of drapes in front of the window. It had turned out he was wrong.

The team had expected Jane to make a run for it as soon as Red John was dealt with, to sort out how he would go on. Van Pelt had told him all she had expected was an occasional post card telling them they needn't worry for him, that he was feeling better, getting over it. And that he wouldn't be coming back.

Lisbon revealing herself as the Red John mole they had been looking for had changed that. Now, all van Pelt could do was guess what would happen next. Just as Jane himself had to, too.

He brooded a little more, but his thoughts didn't make it very far, as a light sleep overwhelmed him.

* * *

The soft rustle of fabric next to his ear awoke him and he opened his eyes just in time to see a silhouette disappear out of his sight and to the left. Sitting up, he watched Lisbon walk into the kitchen, so he rose and followed her.

"You're up," he said, and she nearly dropped the glass she'd been filling with water but caught it in time.

"Yes," she answered then, turning off the water and turning around to face him.

She looked much better, but the stark contrast of her pale face and the rings under her eyes was even more apparent now that her skin wasn't flushed with the heat of a fever.

"I'm better now," she said, beating him to the question he had been about to ask. "I've taken a shower when you were gone. I felt gross, too hot and sweaty."

Jane made a noise to show he had heard her, and observed as she gulped down the water almost hastily.

"You should go back to bed," he said, careful. He didn't want to annoy her for he knew how easily she was riled up by the wrong words now.

She made a face. "It's nice that you're worried for me – no, don't try and deny it."

Jane almost smiled as he thought, _damn, she's getting good_. Before he could make a comment, though, she continued.

"But I don't think I can go back and lie still for hours now. I wouldn't fall asleep and instead, it would bore me to death. If you don't mind, I'll stay in the living room and read or something."

"Of course, you live here now. I can't forbid you to sit in the living room and read," he said. Lisbon cocked her head. "It's you who owns this apartment, not me. You could just throw me out now."

She paused, frowning. "Why don't you?"

"Dr. Willowman would hand you over to some annoying social worker, and we both know you don't want that."

Lisbon smiled at him, looking like she knew something he didn't. "There is more behind it, I can see that much. But if you don't want to tell me, I'm fine with it. I think I'll find out sometime, anyway."

Somehow, Jane couldn't help himself but hope she wouldn't find out too soon.

Lisbon turned and made to walk back to the living room, but then turned on her heels and looked at him, stuffing her hands into her pants pockets.

"Have you thought about anything you'd like to know yet?"

"Yes, I have," Jane answered, his heart giving a sudden leap and then speeding away at a hundred miles an hour, leaving him and his brain behind. His thinking seemed to slow.

"Then come on. I feel like sharing something," Lisbon said, this time not as lighthearted as he would have awaited from her former demeanor.

She sat down in the armchair, one leg pulled up to her chest, the other dangling over one of the arms, so he chose the sofa. Her expectant look made him uneasy, but he hid it beneath a mask of calm.

Instead of asking a question on Red John, though, he asked her: "You hurt me, do you know that?"

For a second, Lisbon seemed taken aback, having expected something different. She quickly collected herself.

"Of course," she said, her face grave and sincere. Regret was showing, if Jane wasn't mistaken. "But – you have hurt me, too."

Oh, this being was going to drive him crazy. Anger bubbled up inside of him. This time, it was about him. This time, he was the hurt one. He had a right to be because he had fought to get her free.

"I don't know what I feel guiltier for right now: saving you from prison or becoming friends with you," he said in a low voice.

Not unfriendly, but the message was clear, and she got it.

"I can understand," she said, her voice a whisper. "But you have to know that, between you and Red John, there's never been a doubt for me about whom I'd choose over whom. As long as I've known him, of all the people I knew – excluding my brothers – it was always him."

He badly wanted to accept that so they could move past the subject, but he couldn't. It wasn't as simple as that.

"But why? What drew you to him?" he asked, sounding almost desperate in his own ears.

Lisbon didn't seem to pick up on it.

"When we were children, we lived in the same neighborhood. If I remember correctly, we met on the playground for the first time. I don't know, it's just how friendships between children develop. They just happen. We went to different schools, even in later years when we knew each other better than brother and sister, but we never lost sight of each other.

Of course I noticed he was different from the others, but I was more or less impressed at how he caught frogs or butterflies, because they always managed to slip out of my hands. They never escaped his, though."

She laughed, remembering her childlike clumsiness.

"Sometimes, he'd "give" me a butterfly. And sometimes, they died. I didn't know that he killed them deliberately, he just said they suffocated in his hands, but I'm sure he must have kept some of the butterflies in a jar until they died.

And then, one day, he killed a frog in front of me by stepping on it and squishing it to death. I think that must've been when I was about six or seven. I didn't talk to him for a few days, and he came to apologize.

You know how I can never be angry for long? I couldn't back then, either. I never saw him kill a bigger animal again, but I am sure he set up traps for mice in his cellar and killed them, too. Snapped their necks. I found one once, when we were hiding in there, and its head just dangled around when I picked it up. He looked a little embarrassed when I saw the mouse, and I knew that it hadn't been killed by a cat for there were no cats in the house he lived in, but I didn't say anything."

"What were you hiding from?"

"Oh, yes. That's where things got intense. I think that was when we grew really close.

It was when my mother died and my father began drinking. The first few times when I noticed he was drunk, I was desperate. I didn't know what to do, so I ran. I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I took my brothers and went out, sleeping at friend's places. Never at his place, though.

The first time my father hit me" – Jane could see from her eyes, which were firmly set on a spot on the wall behind him, that it hurt her to talk about this – "all I had in mind was getting away. At that very moment, I only cared about myself. I didn't even think about my brothers, I just stumbled out the door and ran the few blocks to his house, and when he opened the door to his apartment, and saw what I looked like – I was covered in bruises, you know – he just held me, and let me cry.

But, as it happens, he took me to the cellar first, because I didn't want his parents – who are both dead, but you know that - to overhear us, and the cellar was the only safe place we could go.

I found that mouse there, saw its snapped neck – and that was when I remembered my brothers. They were alone, at home with my drunken father, and had no one to protect them.

I asked him to come with me, but stay out of the house. I've got no idea for what reason, but he always avoided meeting my family."

She threw him a glare.

"What comes in handy now, at least for you, because it makes my story seem so made up. Anyway, he came with me and waited on the front porch. When I stepped in, my brothers were nowhere in sight and my father lay on the kitchen floor. He'd passed out.

I was too weak to carry him to the couch in the living room alone, so I asked him if he could help me – and he did.

It wasn't the only time, but as soon as I could drag my father to the couch on my own, I stopped asking him for help."

Jane stared at Lisbon staring at the wall, and replayed what she'd just said in his head. Forgetting about her brothers when they might have needed protection – it might have been the moment Lisbon had decided she'd protect other people she cared about, no matter what the consequences.

And her stopping to ask for help, her need to be independent and in control – all this had made her the person she was today.

And Raymond Haffner had been a part of it. Jane couldn't help himself but envy the man. Lisbon was a great woman – apart from the obvious, big "flaw" – and Raymond Haffner, of all people, who was going to become a serial killer, had seen her develop into that great person she was today.

As if coming out of a trance, Lisbon blinked a few times, then looked at Jane.

"That's one of the reasons we were friends. One of the reasons why we were so close. There are numerous others.

Once, he stepped in for me and…and got himself beaten up by my father. I'd been out with him, and he just wanted to see me home safely, but my father had drunk himself into a rage and stumbled out of the back door, shouting at me why I was home so late. When I tried to explain, he wouldn't let me."

Her eyes turned sad, but at the same time as hard and cold as stone.

"He called me a selfish bitch. That bastard.

However, John stepped in front of me. Told my father he didn't have a right to call me that. And that was when my father started ranting about how John was just a sick idiot who wanted me for fun. John kept defending me, my father kept ranting, and then…I think something just snapped inside of him. John swung a fist at him. My father swung back, and before I knew what was happening, they were beating each other up. I tried to get in between them, but soon enough, my father fell and didn't get up again."

She snorted, but it didn't sound very funny.

"John had gotten him down for good. He helped me carry him inside again, then I cleaned the cuts in his face and sent him home. The next day, my father didn't remember what had happened to him. I told him he'd gotten into a bar fight."

She sighed.

"That happened twice more. My father remembered neither. And even more times, John helped me sneak back into the house unseen and unheard, so my father wouldn't even get a chance at hurting me.

He just happened to be the first person I could always – and I mean it – depend on. If I needed alone time, he'd leave me to it. If I needed a shoulder to cry on, he was the one I turned to. Not one of my girlfriends, they were all glitter, glamour and nail polish. Apart from finding guys sexy and the latest fashion trend cool, they had no opinion. He had."

Lisbon had told Jane earlier that she and Haffner had never been in a romantic relationship. What she had let him know now made it sound so different.

"Have you ever considered the possibility that _he _was in love with_ you_?" he asked.

Frowning, Lisbon looked at him, obviously thinking his question over. "If he was, he would have made a move on me. He knew he didn't have to be afraid of telling me about his feelings."

She grinned a little, looking insecure. "I know it may sound crazy, a serial killer talking about his innermost emotions and not about his desire to rip another victim apart. But that's how it was. I'm not lying to you now, it would be pointless."

Jane just stared.

"You know, on most TV shows, characters are designed so you naturally have to like them, others are made to be despised. But this isn't the movies, Jane. The real life isn't that easy. It isn't that easy to distinguish whom you like or not. And sometimes you can even like and hate a person at the same time."

She shot him a sad smile.

For a few more seconds, Jane just looked at her looking at him, and then asked: "Why didn't you just…"

The words died in his mouth, on his dry tongue. He wasn't sure if he should – or could, for that matter – say them. But Lisbon's eyes were encouraging him to go on, even though she'd scrunched her brows so there were creases visible on her forehead.

"Why didn't you simply leave him when you found out he killed people? You must have, even if you didn't know in the beginning. You could have just gone to the police back then. None of this would have happened."

At this, he saw anger bubble away behind her eyes, but she kept it in check.

"As you have stated correctly once already," she said, her jaw tight, "it isn't that easy to stop being friends with someone you have known for a long time."

"Yes, but wouldn't that be a legitimate reason to do just that?"

Lisbon huffed. "Maybe. But then it would also have been legitimate for you to just abandon me a few months ago," she spat.

"That isn't a good reason, and you know it."

"Quite obviously, you don't understand, not even the deeper meaning of your own words," Lisbon said, now really showing her ire.

"No, I don't. I wouldn't want to be friends with a serial killer."

"A lot of people have friends who have killed someone."

"Well, not all of them know that."

"But some do. And they help their friends cover it up. Everywhere you look in our casefiles, you will see that."

"Yes, but I am not interested in what happened to other people a few years back. We live today and I am interested in only one story, and that is yours and Red Johns."

"And yours. Don't forget it includes you, too."

"It does. So, if you say I don't understand, explain. Make me understand."

"Fine. I will. Ask me again in two hours and I'll tell you more," she said, rising out of the seat and making her way towards the hall.

"Where are you going?" Jane asked, stepping in her way.

She couldn't be serious about going. Not now. Not when they were in the middle of a serious talk.

"To my room. In case you've forgotten, I've sweated and hallucinated all night with a high fever. I'm still exhausted," she said, her voice only slightly venomous.

Jane clenched his jaw. He could see she was right, it was evident in the way she was walking. "Sure," he growled, letting her pass.

He would take her up on her word. He'd ask her again, and that time he wouldn't let her go.

* * *

This conversation isn't finished yet. It'll go on in the next chapter, and this time, Lisbon will not evade Jane.


	15. Chapter 15

Hey there!

First of all, I want to thank everyone who's read and reviewed Chapter 14 (thanks to Guest whom I cannot thank personally!)!

This chapter starts where the last left off, so you should read that before you read what happens in here.

As always, let me know what you think of this!

Enjoy

TheReflection

P.S.: If anything of TM belonged to me, something different would have happened to them. Obviously it doesn't, because I still haven't gotten my will...

* * *

Two hours later, however, she hadn't come back to the kitchen or the living room, hadn't even used the bathroom, as far as he could tell, so he went up to her door and knocked.

It didn't surprise him when she didn't answer and opened it a crack. She seemed to be asleep again, lying on her side, her breathing even, not moving.

He sighed and wanted to retreat unnoticed, when her voice, a little hoarse, pierced through the silence.

"I heard you."

Jane stopped short. "Oh," he managed eventually.

Lisbon turned onto her back and looked at him with a knowing grin. "In case you were wondering, I haven't been sleeping for those two hours. I was sorting out the things I am going to tell you."

He said nothing.

Lisbon sighed, looking at the ceiling.

"Actually, what has happened to me after saying his name is better than what I expected. A little fever, that's all? I can deal with that. I would have believed I'd instantly die of an aneurism or something."

Her voice held something akin to black humor that made him want to shiver. Jane suppressed the feeling.

"He didn't want to do you any real harm. He loved you far too much. Apart from that, the fever, if it hadn't been treated, would have been – or become – life threatening. Also, I think it is possible that the fever didn't stem from Red John's hypnosis but simply from your physical condition. A deprivation of sleep, not having eaten much, the emotional strain you have been through...all these things might have built up to make you sick anyway, sooner or later. Saying his name possibly only triggered the fever."

He didn't say that that would have meant all Red John's hypnosis would have done to Lisbon was give her a headache and maybe make her throw up. It would have meant Red John had lied to her when he had said she would be _physically_ incapable of giving away his identity. However, he and Lisbon knew that the placebo effect was capable of triggering a lot of willpower in humans.

Jane thought Lisbon had to feel disappointed in her friend, for she was smart enough to know what he, Jane, wasn't telling her and was currently figuring it out on her own. Yet she didn't say a word about it.

She simply sighed again and rubbed her temple, as if pursuing this whole train of thought was tiring her out.

"Anyway, what conclusion have you reached, regarding the things you want to tell me?" Jane asked, pushing the door open some more.

Sitting up and crossing her legs, she patted the bed. "Have a seat. Things like that shouldn't be talked over across a room."

Hesitatingly, Jane followed her invitation.

"If you really want to understand, I have to tell the story what happened when he killed for the very first time."

Jane's stomach turned into a block of ice and contracted painfully. He gulped, then focused on Lisbon's story.

She looked him in the eyes.

"I had no idea about what he was going to do. _No idea._ I doubt it even was a real plan.

He came to me a few hours after it had happened. He threw small stones against my window. It was unusual for him to do that, rouse me in the middle of the night. Normally, if we planned on meeting, we would set up a date and a time" – she laughed a little, though without humor – "as if it was forbidden even back then. I think treating our friendship like a forbidden thing was a fun game for us.

And, apart from that, we were grown-ups. Teenagers maybe would do that because they thought it romantic or such bull. It wasn't anything _we_ did.

So I knew something wasn't right. We were patient, if there were any important matters we could wait for an _opportunity_ to talk it through with the other. Not so this time, it seemed.

I went outside through the back door of the house, and he nearly collapsed, he looked so relieved at seeing me. He nearly…" – she paused, frowning – "he _very_ nearly started crying. I noticed his hands were shaking, and he was _so_ pale, I had never seen him like that before. Like a ghost.

When I asked him what was wrong, he barely got out a single word.

Jane, believe me, he himself almost couldn't believe what he'd done.

He hadn't done it mindlessly, for he must have had enough of his wit together not to leave any traces behind, but he was so scared of himself he wouldn't let me come closer to him than two steps. He really thought he would be capable of doing something to me, although I knew he wasn't. He feared for my life, Jane, but I knew I had nothing to be afraid _of_. He was so desperate, and he wouldn't even let me comfort him.

So I just sat there on the porch of the door, and he sat across me in a wooden chair, his head in his hands – blood stains on his shirt – and nearly loosing it. And then, he got up, pulled me to my feet and said he was proud."

Lisbon drew in a shaky breath. "He said he was proud of not being discovered while butchering a woman."

Jane opened his mouth, meaning to ask why she hadn't called the police, but she seemed to read his thoughts.

"I couldn't hand him to the police, Jane! What he had done, it broke something inside him!"

"Yes, the barrier that had prevented him from killing anyone."

"You –"

Very suddenly, Jane rose from the bed. "He was a _relentless killer_, Lisbon! How could you even bear with him all this time, how could you keep his secret?!"

Lisbon pulled her eyebrows together, anger in her eyes now, too. "You were relentless, too. Relentless at hunting my best friend. Do you think it was easy for me?"

Evening out his heavy breathing, he balled his hands into fists, reining in his anger. He had to let her tell her story.

"I had a hard time, too, keeping his secret, but it turned out it got easier every time."

Jane snorted at that.

"Don't do that. I have got no idea why, why he began killing in the first place, but he just kept doing it, obviously – searching for victims, killing them in a gruesome way. I always…thought of it as some kind of addiction or OCD he didn't have any control over. Maybe getting found out now and being convicted means something like rehab for him.

Anyways, he also kept up coming to me afterwards – not always only hours after it happened, sometimes it took days or weeks, but he always came. Talked to me about it. Sometimes told me about what they had looked like. Never about how they screamed or pleaded to him to spare their lives. I had to learn that for myself when I went with him."

Her voice broke at the end of the sentence.

She blew out a deep breath. "He woke them first, showed them the knife. Let them scream for a few minutes, then tasered them."

Lisbon looked at him, a sudden sadness and weariness apparent on her elfin face. "He didn't taser your wife. Thankfully, he did it to Charlotte."

Jane didn't respond for a few seconds, willing the pictures in his mind to back down. "I know. Only Charlotte had the characteristic taser burns."

They fell into silence, each caught up in old memories, until Jane asked: "Why did you decide to go with him in the first place? You could have said no."

She thought about that for a while.

"Maybe I could have. But I had the feeling I had to go, I don't know why. When he first asked me to accompany him, he looked so lost, I couldn't decline."

Only now did it occur to Jane that the defensiveness Lisbon had displayed in the interrogation room a few months back had been a mask, too. This, what he was seeing now, most likely was the real deal. The _real_ Teresa Lisbon.

"Perhaps out of worry for him. Your mother instincts –" she raised her eyebrows – "yes, Lisbon; they are very strong. I think you were worrying about him. Maybe he'd get caught. Or maybe, one day, he suddenly wouldn't be able to take it anymore and kill himself."

She was silent, frowning again, but then looked at him. "I think you may have a point there. Additionally, I think I wanted to convince myself that what he was feeling while…while doing it wasn't something akin to joy."

"Was it?" Jane asked, watching her closely.

"I…don't really know," she answered slowly. "He was very concentrated when doing it. I only had the chance to see his face once, normally he'd always do it wearing a mask. But there was so much precision in it, it didn't look like he was slaying someone. He looked like you'd imagine a manic artist painting his picture as if it was the last he would create in his life and wanting it to be a masterpiece. It…it paralyzed me. I know it sounds deranged, but it _was _fascinating."

A little afraid of how she might react, Jane dared to ask: "Is it possible you mistook fear for fascination?"

He saw a quick flare of anger, which quickly subsided. "What do you mean by that? Do you think I can't recognize my feeling's meaning?"

Jane shrugged helplessly. "Don't you think it's at least possible that you were afraid Red John would do something to you in his rush and that it was fear that made you stay, so he wouldn't think you'd tell the police what he was doing if you left? That you, maybe, told yourself it was fascination you were experiencing because you didn't want to admit to yourself you were scared of your very own friend?

You compared him to an addict earlier. Junkies can be dangerous when they are high."

Her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted, Lisbon stared at him, saying nothing.

"I've been scared of you before and I have admitted it to myself," she said, her lips barely moving, the words merely above a whisper.

"But I'm not a serial killer. You know I run scared from weapons, especially guns. There were only two exceptions."

Lisbon nodded, thinking of Carter and Hardy. Biting her lower lip, she looked at the ground. "Anyway," Jane interrupted her thoughts, "why would you have to be scared of me?"

She shook her head slightly as if trying to clear her head. When she spoke, she avoided looking him in the eyes.

"Whenever you had a new clue on Red John, you changed, like a werewolf. You became a different man, a man with a tunnel vision. Leaving aside the fact that I was scared you'd kill my best friend – and if you really had, I don't know what I would have done to you -, your determination scared me. You were reckless, like a train running over everything in its way until it either hits a brick wall and kills everyone who's on it…or until it manages to screech to a halt at the last second possible.

I always thought you were willing to sacrifice the people close to you – the team and me. He wasn't."

Now it was Jane's turn to look to the ground. He knew she was right.

"He gathered so many people around him," Lisbon continued.

To Jane, she seemed she couldn't believe that herself.

"I know he is charismatic, but he has won over so many people to help him in his dark purpose – deliver him information, cover up his tracks, make people who knew too much disappear, play people, fool them, blindside them.

And _none _of them knew about me. I wonder how he managed to keep me a secret; he didn't tell me. I would have thought someone would have to find out about our friendship eventually. But if someone did, he probably had him killed. As he has proven very impressively by avoiding my conviction with denying me, he is willing to do whatever necessary to…_protec_t me."

She lay a strange stressing on the word "protect", it sounded somewhat ironic to Jane's ears. Lisbon went on in her musings; she seemed to almost have forgotten about him.

"Haffner was a member of Visualize," Jane said.

Lisbon raised an eyebrow. "And? I knew that."

"Yes, it's just…were you okay with him joining a religious cult?"

She snorted and looked at him as if she was surprised. "You don't really think he joined Visualize because he believed in the bullshit Stiles is saying?"

She shook her head in dismay. "It was a means to an end. When he noticed he needed people who would do things for him-"

"Minions."

"Yes, minions. When he noticed that he needed _minions_, what better way than to join a cult full of desperate people who would believe _anything_ a charismatic man promised them?

They were easy targets, willing to do a lot to get what they wanted so badly. Some of them even were in quite high ranks, as you know. Wealthy people who are easily influenced? Perfect for his purposes."

She crinkled her nose, showing she still didn't approve of what Haffner had done.

"I was the only one who ever saw him _do it_. And everything else was taken care of by other people. Not that I wanted to, of course.

I never got to see much of his network, because, to me, it seemed infinitely complicated. I know the basics about how he ruled it. But…I will never be able to grasp the full extent of it, or how many members it had, or what their tasks were.

To be frank, I never asked him much about it. I think…yes, I think I was scared to see what he had built up just for the sake of killing people."

She sighed. "He had fun telling me how he recruited new…_minions_. How he sometimes blackmailed them into it by threatening to uncover their own secrets. It is amazing how many dirty cops are among them. I suppose you have read the list he has written for the judge?"

Jane nodded.

"I imagine many of them are angry he gave the police their names."

"No, actually. Most of them are proud to be able to say they have worked for him. Unlike you, they _do_ regard him as their personal god."

Lisbon snorted. "Oh, Ray was many things, but he certainly wasn't a god."

Only seconds after that, she moaned and her hand shot up to her temple, rubbing it. When Jane took a step forward, she held up her free hand and cracked a fake smile.

"It's fine. I won't fall to feverish hallucinations again; I'll just have a hellish headache for a few hours. I've slipped up like this before."

"Let me get some Tylenol," Jane said, already halfway out of the door.

"Jane," she said, "really, I –"

Suddenly furious, Jane turned around and jabbed a finger at her, raising his voice.

"No, Lisbon. Listen to me. Red John has hurt me, and he has hurt you, too, with what he did to you, at least that's what I think. I have hurt you and you have hurt me. Let me do this, we both don't deserve much more pain, physical or emotional."

Lisbon was rendered speechless for a moment, while Jane calmed himself down again. When Lisbon spoke again, he was surprised to hear a black kind of humor in her voice.

"I think we both have a great deal to be sorry for. For example, I'm sorry for having had to deceive you, but I'm not sorry for doing it."

She frowned with a crooked smile. "Does that even make sense?"

Almost smiling, Jane shook his head. Normally it was him who lifted the spirits when the mood was dark. It was refreshing to see Lisbon try.

"No. Now come on, I don't want you to be all grumpy again because of a headache."

With a defeated grin, Lisbon followed him out of the room and into the kitchen.

* * *

The two of them sat down in the living room and continued talking, not all about Red John, but anything. But, as it couldn't be avoided, their conversation turned back to touchy topics – such as who had hurt whom more.

It turned out Lisbon sometimes still thought about the way she had been hurt from the way he'd left her – and the team, which she added after a short pause – for six months and running off to Las Vegas without a word. Jane told her how his heart had been ripped apart by what she had kept from him.

They shouted at each other again, but it quickly subsided into quiet apologies.

Later, they laughed at how silly they both sounded.

Their respective pain was woven together so tightly that neither of them was able to detangle the mess it made. It was unsettling but it was also true. That was why they called it a Remise – none of them would budge or give in, but didn't need to anymore, either.

They reached that conclusion at around one thirty in the morning, shook hands on it and then went to bed, both of them positively exhausted but at least content with the outcome of their conversation.


End file.
